The Campaign Series: Middle East 1948-1985 - Into Africa! (No Berto!)

Started by Crossroads, October 03, 2015, 03:20:43 AM

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Crossroads

I thought I'd introduce myself and the Campaign Series: Middle East title (CS:ME) in a form of a During Action Report. I am one of the Campaign Series Legion, the Dev Team that develops the game under the friendly umbrella of Matrix Games. I am not affiliated with Matrix as such, but as a CSL member I am obviously deeply biased nevertheless.  ;)

I am playing a PBEM game vs Berto, our lead programmer. 

There's a DAR going on at the Matrix CS:ME Forum by him but since I am not allowed for a peek I will post here instead. Berto writes a mean report, so if interested to see the life from the Egyptian side of the trenches, have a peek there.

CS:ME released on Sept 24. Here's a little brief on the game, first.



A Brief History. Campaign Series begun its life under Talonsoft in late 1990's, with a team of Avalon Hill Boardgame Company grognards led by Jim Rose founding it. All this with a purpose of developing some cool computer games on the legacy of their vast experience with board wargames. Programming efforts under John Tiller's lead the company to develop first a dozen or so titles under the Battleground series. The attention then switched to Campaign Series titles, under which West Front, East Front (two of them, actually), Rising Sun, and Divided Ground (Middle East) were developed. There was also a lot of add-on CDs to them produced, including such titles as Operation Sealion, Fall of the Reich, etc. Under Norm Koger Talonsoft developed the Operational Art of War, another title still being worked upon today.

Talonsoft going slowly into red, with public interest in traditional hex based games dwindling  :( , they were acquired by Take Two Interactive, which soon sold their hexbased games to Matrix Games, where Campaign Series and TOAW continue to be developed by their respective dev teams.

The Campaign Series titles (CS, from now) from Talonsoft / Take Two were combined into the definitive Matrix bundle of John Tiller's Campaign Series (JTCS) in 2007, containing the three titles of WF, EF and RS. Meanwhile, John Tiller had moved to eventually found his own excellent gaming company, and it was a bit quiet for the series for a while.

Then and Now. Some three years ago CS began to be developed again by the collective of the current Campaign Series Legion team in place.

The first big effort was JTCS 2.0, a free upgrade, bringing the games into modern operating systems versions, and under the bonnet: merging the three codebases of EF,WF,RS into a one common codebase. Any code from DG, an unfortunately rushed effort by Talonsoft on their dying days, was not included, which is not to take anything away from DG's excellent dev team. They never got a chance for a proper release as it was. Instead, CS:ME adds a new code base, with new features such as the new Air Model created, for instance.

CS:ME is the first commercial release by the new CSL team. Should it have the commercial success, the series will be further developed and new titles brought in, the initial schedule including titles as Vietnam, Korea, Cold War (a bundle of smaller cold war era conflicts that do not fit VN nor KR), Nato Wars (for a series without a Fulda Gap what-if is not a series), and new versions of East Front, West Front, and let us call it: Pacific Front of World War II.

Our vision is that of a "Living Game", where once new features are developed to new titles they are then introduced into previous titles as well, as new Updates, free of charge.

What is Campaign Series, then? As with the little history I wrote, with 6 minutes(ish) per turn and on 250m hexes, for one the series are a spiritual follow up of Avalon Hill's Panzerblitz, Panzer Leader and Arab-Israeli Wars. Here's a cool picture from Boardgamegeek showing a PL variant with Imaginiative Stragegist Counters:



I am playing CS:ME with 2D view turned on, for obvious reasons, as my avatar gives away. The 2D terrain we are putting together is intended to give the game a distinctive cardboard game feel. It is only 1.00 at the moment, but we are off to a start!

The game comes packed with a wonderful 3D as well. The 3D views are based on tabletop miniature models, and are hand drawn pixel by pixel into the little bitmap sheets. I quite love them too.

By the way, I endlessly tweak my posts. There is hardly any I have not modified. Now you know. It has already started. Also, I am not native in English, so please forgive any typos and grammar errors  :)
Campaign Series Legion | CS: Vietnam 1948-1967 | CS: Middle East 1948-1985

CS: Vietnam DAR: LZ Albany as NVA (South Vietnam 11/17/65)  
CS: Middle East AARs: High Water Mark (Syria 10/12/73) Me vs Berto | Riptide (Libya 8/6/85) Me vs Berto | The Crossroads (West Bank 6/5/67)  Me vs Berto

Boardgame AARs: AH D-Day | MMP PanzerBlitz2 Carentan | OSS Putin's Northern War | GMT Next War: Poland | LnL Against the Odds DIY

Crossroads

Into Africa - End of Friendly Turn #1

OK, let us get started then. Into Africa! is a Complexity 3 sized scenario, meaning there's between 50-90 units in play, transports included. It portrays one of the battles from the October / Yom Kippur war of 1973.

The scenario is designed by Jason Petho, our CSL Lead. This would mean there's better be some time spent studying the map, the forces available, and the objectives set, or one will find himself short on his targets!

From Scenario Description:

17 October, 1973 [Deservoir, Egypt]: Israeli paratroopers, from the 243rd Airbourne Brigade crossed the Suez Canal during the early morning hours October 16th and established a small bridgehead near Deservoir. Meeting little resistance, they began expanding to the north the following day while the Battle of Chinese Farm was in full swing. As the brigade advanced north, resistance increased from a hodgepodge of units; mechanized infantry, artillery, and commandos. The advance was slow even though it was supported by tanks firing from the east bank.

Here's, then, the map as a whole. 2D Battle Views include four zoom levels:
- Zoom-In (100%),
- Normal (75%),
- Zoom-Out (50%), and
- Extreme Zoom-Out (25%).

They all have their purposes, the two smallest especially for planning and troop movement. This is Zoom-Out, at 50% with everything visible for this is a smallish map, at least in the context of really spending a lot of time with the biggies that come with the game. There's three 3D views as well.

(Apologies on pic quality. What I've done is I take a screenshot, paste it to Powerpoint for these arrows etc, then save as jpg and put to my Photobucket account. )



About the game window. On the right you can observe what we call Hex Infobox, or the area that displays, err.., info about the selected hex. This includes information about the terrain itself, plus unit Infoboxes about each unit present. The game has a IGOUGO model, and is based on Action Points (AP), movement and fire missiond deducing from the AP tally.

There is a lot of options on how the display is to be set. I have opted to omit the Toolbar from the bottom, for clarity's sake here. I do prefer to keep it on, the large version of it, for with a 2K monitor there's the estate to do that. In this display I have the hex grid on, too.

My game plan, then.The Red circles mark the objectives as a whole, with some hexes containing Objectives with Victory Points (VP). VPs are gather by killing and capturing enemy units, on exiting Exit Hexes (none here), and of course by taking over and holding (ha!) the Objectives.

The Orange arrows mark my plan. I have elements of Isreaeli Para Bde at my hands, more of that in a bit. The basic plan:

- 1st Coy to secure the lower left corner of the map (1),
- 2nd Coy to cross a deep river and hit the enemy in the center, causing some additional confusion I hope (2), and
- the main push with 3rd Coy and (most of) the support units pushing to the North, with a task of securing a couple of bridges on their way (3).

Bridges can be destroyed, so capturing them in tact is a must. My Engineers can build light bridges for foot infantry, but my AFVs require proper bridges in place, and I don't have any heavy Engineering equipment to build any. Shallow rivers with a lighter blue hue can be crossed by all units, with the cost of some extra APs. Deep rivers with the darker blue hue can't be crossed by any units, unless there's a bridge in place.

- You will also observe a friendly Tank Coy in the East of Suez Canal, unable to cross (4). This is the beginning of my turn #2, and I have already moved them towards a hill where they have visibility to opposite banks, and can join in for supporting direct fire missions.

So into turn #2 next
Campaign Series Legion | CS: Vietnam 1948-1967 | CS: Middle East 1948-1985

CS: Vietnam DAR: LZ Albany as NVA (South Vietnam 11/17/65)  
CS: Middle East AARs: High Water Mark (Syria 10/12/73) Me vs Berto | Riptide (Libya 8/6/85) Me vs Berto | The Crossroads (West Bank 6/5/67)  Me vs Berto

Boardgame AARs: AH D-Day | MMP PanzerBlitz2 Carentan | OSS Putin's Northern War | GMT Next War: Poland | LnL Against the Odds DIY

Crossroads

Into Turn #2

I have played this scenario once before. It is categorized as a Head-to-head scenario. I played vs AI at the time, had lots of fun, and secured a Major Victory at the end. Upon graduating from the Bootcamp scenarios, I feel this is one of those scenarios where one can find his feet, and if indeed able to beat AI then to know that the basics have been succefully learned.

Here are all my assets on display. I have switched to 2D Zoom-In view, and have opted for Alternate Counters, and to Unit Icons instead of NATO icons. The black profiles are a mod of mine, for I seem to like them that way...

So, the IDF 416th Mech Para Bn it is, with some support elements available too. Here is the situation after my Turn #1 move. Of relevance are my Arm'd Eng Coy, whose three platoons have spread around the deep river, in preparation to lay light bridges in the beginning of my turn #2. Out of my head there's a 20% die roll for a succesful bridge building to take place, so I do hope to get one bridge in place immediately. Fire and Movement, Fire and Movement...



My basic force consist of the Battalion's three Coys, supported by one Mech Eng Coy (without their IFVs), and one Shot Kal (Centurion) Coy of the supporting Tank Battalion. There's a friendly Centurion Coy at the other side of the canal too, unable to cross, and I will not expect it to play a prominent role.

Also, I have two batteries of Wolf 200mm rocket SPA available, as well two 155mm M109 SPA batteries. Off map, so I don't need to worry about counter  battery fire.

I do also have two Air Strikes available. They will be called in on a similar manner than In-direct Artillery fire. More of that later. No On-Map Helicopters here. They are a fun to play with, but alas, not here.

I have opted for Orange Highlight Colors. There's 16 available, so hopefully something for everyone.

What else? Oh yes, switched hexes OFF to display Contours. This is a flat piece of land, and the few hills available should be used for spotting where it makes sense.
Campaign Series Legion | CS: Vietnam 1948-1967 | CS: Middle East 1948-1985

CS: Vietnam DAR: LZ Albany as NVA (South Vietnam 11/17/65)  
CS: Middle East AARs: High Water Mark (Syria 10/12/73) Me vs Berto | Riptide (Libya 8/6/85) Me vs Berto | The Crossroads (West Bank 6/5/67)  Me vs Berto

Boardgame AARs: AH D-Day | MMP PanzerBlitz2 Carentan | OSS Putin's Northern War | GMT Next War: Poland | LnL Against the Odds DIY

Crossroads

End of Friendly Turn #2

So here's the situation then at the end of Friendly turn #2, with each of the Para Coys getting on with their jobs at hand:



Abu Sultan / 1st Coy. As the spotting rules go, a friendly unit has to spend a full turn with LOS to enemy units, for a chance to spot it for next turn. There are calculations for that, terrain and the hostile unit type playing a role. As it is, I don't see any hostiles anywhere, but I know they are there.

There's the other spotting model available, to advance until fired upon. Also known as: Recon by Death. I am not a fan of that, and with a relatively small force pool available early losses will be missed later in the game. In this case I prioritize speed over caution, and will rely if not on Fire-And-Movement, then on Movement-And-Fire instead.

I have opted for Hex Higlights for Visibility, meaning there is a hex grid highlighted to hexes I have a visual. We are playing with Extreme Fog-of-war on, so there's no knowing what is visible from each hex until you have friendly eyes there. So I moved some fire support elements to bridge (red circle), as I noticed there is a good visibility to town hexes from there. Then the unlucky forward Coy received the orders to enter the town without further delay.

An Egyptian force mix of unknown quantity is indeed in town. My platoon was fired by what I believe is a full Egyptian rifle platoon. I take two Strength Points (SP) worth of casualties, and my unit is also disrupted. That was unlucky. My HMG engages the enemy platoon from the bridge, my AA halftrack joins a scoot-and-shoot mission on them together with my one Centurion troop there, and I place the two fresh para platoons to rush in come next turn, after the artillery barrage I plotted now.

Ezab el-Aqqeda / 2nd Coy One of the Arm'd Engineer teams succesfully built a foot bridge. Woo-hoo, free beer on them after this is over! Again I decide to push on immediately, with the leading platoon taking care of Movement (orange circle), and one platoon placing themselves for fire support (red circle). Again I found out the bridge is defended, and again I take casualties, this time 1SP and a Disruption. Sheesh! Regardless, I send the third platoon to recon to north, as my HMG team and friendly artillery is expected to clear the village come next turn.

Ezab Zein el-Abidin Isa / Reinforced 3rd Coy Writing that was a bit of a handful... Speed is the order of the day here as well. This time I take no casualties, not even disruptions, from the LMG unit defending the first bridge. I commited two platoons to entering the hex next to it, accompanied by the Bde Cdr for increased Morale and Command effect. See the Morale on my paras. They are B-level, so morale is normally 6, but with the 3SP Cdr in the same hex, their morale is now 9. Should they be disrupted during the Egyptian turn, I expect them to recover immediately, to continue the push.

Here too, the two Centurion troops were around for close support, but retreated behind the enemy line for the hostile turn. Egyptians are packed with armor in this scenario as I recall from having played this vs AI like a month ago.


This, then, is the end of friendly turn #2. I am confident I can continue the strong advance in the initial turns, before the Egyptians are able to react. This is a nice combined-arms scenario, and with the strong artillery to back me up, I expect to move fast before Berto can put a concentrated counter attack in place.

How will that work out? To be continued! At a leisure speed, I would guess. Busy times

Any questions or comments, just ask. And again, Berto's DAR from the Egyptian POV is available at the Matrix CS:ME AAR Forum.

Til next time!
Campaign Series Legion | CS: Vietnam 1948-1967 | CS: Middle East 1948-1985

CS: Vietnam DAR: LZ Albany as NVA (South Vietnam 11/17/65)  
CS: Middle East AARs: High Water Mark (Syria 10/12/73) Me vs Berto | Riptide (Libya 8/6/85) Me vs Berto | The Crossroads (West Bank 6/5/67)  Me vs Berto

Boardgame AARs: AH D-Day | MMP PanzerBlitz2 Carentan | OSS Putin's Northern War | GMT Next War: Poland | LnL Against the Odds DIY

Crossroads

Gosh, but the pics came out bad. I may skip the Powerpoint part next...  >:(
Campaign Series Legion | CS: Vietnam 1948-1967 | CS: Middle East 1948-1985

CS: Vietnam DAR: LZ Albany as NVA (South Vietnam 11/17/65)  
CS: Middle East AARs: High Water Mark (Syria 10/12/73) Me vs Berto | Riptide (Libya 8/6/85) Me vs Berto | The Crossroads (West Bank 6/5/67)  Me vs Berto

Boardgame AARs: AH D-Day | MMP PanzerBlitz2 Carentan | OSS Putin's Northern War | GMT Next War: Poland | LnL Against the Odds DIY

JasonPratt

Pix look fine. Powerpoint has arrows?! Mental note for my own D/AARs later...

Also, your English is better than many native English speakers on the internet, so no problems there.

Finally, this thread is full of squee.  :smitten: :smitten: :smitten:
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

Grim.Reaper

Agree..pictures look fine and really like how your explaining things...very helpful.

-budd-



Is this with variable visibility? if not good luck, with 4 visibility your going to have to get close. There's a lot of good defensive terrain by the looks of it. I also didn't know there was an organization dialog box, learned something new.
Enjoy when you can, and endure when you must.  ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Be Yourself; Everyone Else is Taken ~Oscar Wilde

*I'm in the Wargamer middle ground*
I don't buy all the wargames I want, I just buy more than I need.

Crossroads

Thanks guys, I will continue this with Powerpoint then. Far easier to add all those texts and arrows and what not for sure.

Quote from: JasonPratt on October 03, 2015, 08:14:56 AM
Finally, this thread is full of squee.  :smitten: :smitten: :smitten:

I assume this is a Good Thing  :D

Budd, yes: All Optional Rules on but Armored Facing for AFVs, for I do not prefer it especially when in 2D mode as I currently am. Close and personal it is, just like my Paras like it! 3SPs of casualties at this stage but to odd guarding units was a bit steep though. Must have been some unlucky dice there...

So while waiting for Berto's turn, a comment about the map. The West Bank of Suez Canal as recreated here in Into Africa! was lush with vegetation, as can be noted here. Almost every hex has some special vegetation, be it vineyards, orchars, scrub or what not, bar the marsh land. So it is a bit busy.

Berto and I both follow the Less Is More design principle, so this portrays the terrain in a bit different light than what it mostly is. Luckily, there's a lot of sand in Sinai, so one does not stray far from irrigation to enjoy it at full.

Ah, the tranquility of it all. Sand. More sand. A patch of forest, a couple of escarpments. Two elevation levels. Guaranteed for those Lawrence of Arabia moods...



Keep them questions coming.  :)

To be continued....
Campaign Series Legion | CS: Vietnam 1948-1967 | CS: Middle East 1948-1985

CS: Vietnam DAR: LZ Albany as NVA (South Vietnam 11/17/65)  
CS: Middle East AARs: High Water Mark (Syria 10/12/73) Me vs Berto | Riptide (Libya 8/6/85) Me vs Berto | The Crossroads (West Bank 6/5/67)  Me vs Berto

Boardgame AARs: AH D-Day | MMP PanzerBlitz2 Carentan | OSS Putin's Northern War | GMT Next War: Poland | LnL Against the Odds DIY

JasonPratt

"Squee" is American slang for the sound teenaged girls make when they're happy. It's usually used by people who aren't teenaged girls, to indicate they're happier than maybe they ought to be, and that's okay.  O0
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

mirth

"45 minutes of pooping Tribbles being juggled by a drunken Horta would be better than Season 1 of TNG." - SirAndrewD

"you don't look at the mantelpiece when you're poking the fire" - Bawb

"Can't 'un' until you 'pre', son." - Gus

Crossroads

Turn #3

Quote from: JasonPratt on October 03, 2015, 05:24:39 PM
"Squee" is American slang for the sound teenaged girls make when they're happy. It's usually used by people who aren't teenaged girls, to indicate they're happier than maybe they ought to be, and that's okay. O0

In that case I agree, plenty of squee going on here and more's coming!

<bling> said the mailbox, indicating an incoming PBEM move from Berto. Time to fire up that game again. Here's the Main Menu:



The game comes packed with Editors for tweaking the existing ones, or to create complete new ones. Worth mentioning is the OoB Editor, for it contains the complete Orders of Battles for all nations for the period covered here. Stellar job there by Mr Petho.

There's a Random Battle Generator too, to create a battle for any time period, in Battalion to Corps sizes, with various selection criteria such as the battle type (meeting engagement, pocket breakthough, mountain pass, ...), time of the year, season, weather. Endless fun there, and what I often do I actually open the generated battle with the editors to finalize them to my liking.

CS titles typically come with two types of Campaign Game setups, Linked Campaign Games (LCG), and Dynamic Campaign Games (DCG).

LCGs are a set of maps and OoBs designed to form a storyboard, where each success or failing takes you upon a different path. The scenarios included are designed by the designer. There's a few packed in, ready to be played.

DCGs are game generated like random battles, but there's an underlying script that instructs the battle generator in creating the next battle. One has a core force, that over time can receive not only reinforcements but upgrades too. They are very nice there, none included as the short wars covered don't really justify one. They'd be more at home for long campaigns, something that CS:Vietnam should have.

But, Play Scenario it is, to resume the PBEM battle with Berto...
Campaign Series Legion | CS: Vietnam 1948-1967 | CS: Middle East 1948-1985

CS: Vietnam DAR: LZ Albany as NVA (South Vietnam 11/17/65)  
CS: Middle East AARs: High Water Mark (Syria 10/12/73) Me vs Berto | Riptide (Libya 8/6/85) Me vs Berto | The Crossroads (West Bank 6/5/67)  Me vs Berto

Boardgame AARs: AH D-Day | MMP PanzerBlitz2 Carentan | OSS Putin's Northern War | GMT Next War: Poland | LnL Against the Odds DIY

Crossroads

Israeli Turn #3

Quote from: -budd- on October 03, 2015, 09:33:50 AM
Is this with variable visibility? if not good luck, with 4 visibility your going to have to get close.

The Scenarios are designed with various parameters available. Among them is what we call Dynamic Day / Night / Visibility. Or something like that. We really need to come with a better name for that... ::)

This is the Dynamic Day/Night/Visibility setting for Into Africa!

Day/Night: 1-16[d]
Visibility: 1-7[4] 8-11[5] 12-16[6]

So, for the duration of the 16 turns, it is day all the time (the first line), and visibility improves a tad, to 5 hexes from turn 8, and to 6 hexes from turn 12. It is possible to design really long scenarios with day-night sequences, but while possible the typical scenarios picture a long Dawn or Dusk situation rather.

OK. That's a few words on the basics done again, time to play that turn!

Aleph Company

Back to Standard Counters and NATO icons. Thermometers ON, displaying Action Points (APs).

My forward Platoon takes quite a beating during the Egyptian turn, taking two fire missions from the hostile rifle platoon there. As they ended my previous turn two SPs down, and Disrupted, I am a tad worried. Luckily, all that happened is they took a retreat to location shown here. Disrupted, they can't move towards the enemy, and I will keep them in place for now:



Finally able to perform the art of Fire And Movement, my HMG unit on the bridge engages the hostiles. Twice. No results. I bring forward my AA Halftrack, but no results for the meat choppers either! Dang. That's a Suburb hex they're residing at, there's a nice Terrain Modifier working on their behalf. I then move my Shot'Kal troop for bit of a shoot and scoot, and they finally take a Disruption. That is good enough, although I expected to kill a few SPs. No worries. Time for movement next!

I bring forward the other two Para platoons, first platoon firing at them, twice, but again no results. What is it with them. Kevlar bodyarmor in 1973?

I then decide to try an Assault, mostly to cause a retreat, for I want to fan out a bit. Extreme Fog-of-War is not too helpful here, but I assume the dices are 50/50 and with them disrupted a retreat call is likely. Did not happen the first time I assaulted, but since I am on paved roads, I had the APs to Assault again. This time: Retreat. Yes.



I called two artillery strikes not on the hostile platoon, but on hexes I expect them to retreat come next turn. To the north there's the stone high walls that would trap them, so I expect a fire-and-retreat from them next turn to northeast instead.

There must be more hostiles in town, but knowing Berto they are hiding there, Opportunity Fire set at Short, just waiting to ambush any overly eager Para platoon coming their way. As my instructions for Aleph Coy is just to secure the city, I am done with Recon-by-getting-shot-at. Time is on my side here.

Here, then, is the final situation with Aleph Coy:



The Bn Leader caught up with the forward troops finally, and is now available to boost them against disruptions, or to recover from one. If my lead platoon does not recover from disruption in the beginning of next turn, I will stack the leader with them, for a speedy recovery of their fighting spirits.

Campaign Series Legion | CS: Vietnam 1948-1967 | CS: Middle East 1948-1985

CS: Vietnam DAR: LZ Albany as NVA (South Vietnam 11/17/65)  
CS: Middle East AARs: High Water Mark (Syria 10/12/73) Me vs Berto | Riptide (Libya 8/6/85) Me vs Berto | The Crossroads (West Bank 6/5/67)  Me vs Berto

Boardgame AARs: AH D-Day | MMP PanzerBlitz2 Carentan | OSS Putin's Northern War | GMT Next War: Poland | LnL Against the Odds DIY

Crossroads

Israeli Turn #3 - Beth Company

Oops, some experimental Egyptian counters on display here. Really flat, just a 2px border. Too many mods!

The In-direct Artillery barrage I set last turn dislodged the defenders at el-Aqqeda, just as I expected. My leading Para platoon continues to be disrupted, so I leave it at place, and have just the APs with the second platoon to secure the crossing. It is out of APs, and quite vulnerable to Egyptian counter attacks especially as there's the paved road for quick low-AP movement. Can't be helped, here's hoping they are not pushed back. I keep my HMG behind, in good covering fire positions for any soft targets coming this way.



As this is a more of a deception to keep him guessing about my intention and not a real thing, I move my 3rd platoon to north instead, to recon at the two village hexes there. True enough, Berto's got some forces there on Op Fire waiting for me. I don't take casualties, and with the remaining APs I have points just for one fire mission. I engage the Syrian armor at close range, but to my disappointment don't score any hits. Modern infantry is quite deadly at close range, but I guess my Paras were thinking about something else?

I was hoping for a quick push further north to threaten the two Objectives there from their southern flank. I am instead vulnerable for Egyptian countering moves there, as I am out of APs.

See the enemy information with EFOW in place. If it would be an open terrain I'd see their strength. At village, all I see there's the infantry team and a tank troop. Better assume they are at full strength...
Campaign Series Legion | CS: Vietnam 1948-1967 | CS: Middle East 1948-1985

CS: Vietnam DAR: LZ Albany as NVA (South Vietnam 11/17/65)  
CS: Middle East AARs: High Water Mark (Syria 10/12/73) Me vs Berto | Riptide (Libya 8/6/85) Me vs Berto | The Crossroads (West Bank 6/5/67)  Me vs Berto

Boardgame AARs: AH D-Day | MMP PanzerBlitz2 Carentan | OSS Putin's Northern War | GMT Next War: Poland | LnL Against the Odds DIY

Crossroads

Israeli Turn #3 - North of Gimel Company

A friendly fire base east of Canal reported success in destroying two convoys of heavy trucks loaded with infantry. Wrecks mark the spot they thought to be safe for moving on soft vehicles.

As I mentioned in the opening post, Jason's maps are worth a close study, and there's like two location similar to this to create a fire base at.

There was a hint at this in the Scenario Description too. There often is, it a good practice to read them through carefully  O0

Quote
17 October, 1973 [Deservoir, Egypt]: Israeli paratroopers, from the 243rd Airbourne Brigade crossed the Suez Canal during the early morning hours October 16th and established a small bridgehead near Deservoir. Meeting little resistance, they began expanding to the north the following day while the Battle of Chinese Farm was in full swing. As the brigade advanced north, resistance increased from a hodgepodge of units; mechanized infantry, artillery, and commandos. The advance was slow even though it was supported by tanks firing from the east bank.

Campaign Series Legion | CS: Vietnam 1948-1967 | CS: Middle East 1948-1985

CS: Vietnam DAR: LZ Albany as NVA (South Vietnam 11/17/65)  
CS: Middle East AARs: High Water Mark (Syria 10/12/73) Me vs Berto | Riptide (Libya 8/6/85) Me vs Berto | The Crossroads (West Bank 6/5/67)  Me vs Berto

Boardgame AARs: AH D-Day | MMP PanzerBlitz2 Carentan | OSS Putin's Northern War | GMT Next War: Poland | LnL Against the Odds DIY