Gazala, May 26, 1942

[MengJiao]

The first half of 1942 was pretty bad for the UK and company.  The 8th Army was being pushed into attacking to take the airfields in Cyrenica so as to secure air cover for the Malta convoys.  8th army figured it needed another 100 Grant tanks to have a chance at driving DAK and co out of Cyrenica.  They were probably right about that but in any case, Rommel attacked first and the first part of that attack was a diversion by the coast (as seen here).  I guess it has been diverting so far...the 60th (Italian) went over the top and into minefields and got disrupted mostly.  There was a lot of air action but the only result was some Kittybombers added to the disruption out there.
Oh, and the game is Compass Games The Fall of Tobruk, which came out recently.

[ArizonaTank]

The first half of 1942 was pretty bad for the UK and company.  The 8th Army was being pushed into attacking to take the airfields in Cyrenica so as to secure air cover for the Malta convoys.  8th army figured it needed another 100 Grant tanks to have a chance at driving DAK and co out of Cyrenica.  They were probably right about that but in any case, Rommel attacked first and the first part of that attack was a diversion by the coast (as seen here).  I guess it has been diverting so far...the 60th (Italian) went over the top and into minefields and got disrupted mostly.  There was a lot of air action but the only result was some Kittybombers added to the disruption out there.
Oh, and the game is Compass Games The Fall of Tobruk, which came out recently.

I have "Fall of Tobruk" on my Christmas wish list...so watching this replay.

[MengJiao]

I have "Fall of Tobruk" on my Christmas wish list...so watching this replay.

I'm at the earliest stages of testing the game but the little diversion is a relatively self-contained battle.  I gave the Axis a lot of bombers, but against good, fresh, fully supplied troops (the 1st South African Div) in strong entrenchments on a hill, behind a minefield, nothing helped -- which seems reasonable.  The fighter defenses didn't catch the Axis bombers, but the Kittyhawks did disrupt some of the attackers.  And even that took a fair amount of dice rolling -- so be forewarned about all the throws of the dice.

What I did do more carefully or less randomly was to read the first half of the 3rd volume of the British official history of
WWII in the Mediterranean, tellingly entitled British Fortunes Reach Their Lowest Ebb.

[MengJiao]

I have "Fall of Tobruk" on my Christmas wish list...so watching this replay.

What I did do more carefully or less randomly was to read the first half of the 3rd volume of the British official history of
WWII in the Mediterranean, tellingly entitled British Fortunes Reach Their Lowest Ebb.

Taking Ariete for a spin (afternoon of 26th).  Since 32 Army Tank Bde was drawn north and 27 division posted its heavy AT by the Trig Capuzzo, maybe a thrust into the area that historically became "the Cauldron" would be instructive.  Added air for both sides.  Lots of Italian biplanes and even some Fleet Air Arm biplane bombers (apparently they did Okay in the actual battle -- hard to imagine but there you have it):

[MengJiao]

What I did do more carefully or less randomly was to read the first half of the 3rd volume of the British official history of
WWII in the Mediterranean, tellingly entitled British Fortunes Reach Their Lowest Ebb.

Taking Ariete for a spin (afternoon of 26th).  Since 32 Army Tank Bde was drawn north and 27 division posted its heavy AT by the Trig Capuzzo, maybe a thrust into the area that historically became "the Cauldron" would be instructive.  Added air for both sides.  Lots of Italian biplanes and even some Fleet Air Arm biplane bombers (apparently they did Okay in the actual battle -- hard to imagine but there you have it):

A huge dust storm blew into things in this test game on the afternoon of the 26th.  So no air war over the two frontline sectors and I didn't set either side to attack the other side's airfields...so no air war.
This might be a moment to reflect on everything that went wrong for the Allies in this battle.  As 8th Army estimated before the battle, the erosion of Allied armor was likely to determine the battle.  Since they knew the Axis had about 600 tanks, they figured they needed about 900.  They had about 800, but figured a lot of those barely counted for various reasons.  As it turned out, 8th Army estimates were correct.  For tank repair, at first glance for a while they did, well, but, of course, tank crew casualties for a lot of Allied models (such as Crusaders) were relatively high and so it was harder to get repaired tanks back into action.  And of course, once tank strength erosion started, there were plenty of negative feedbacks, loss of wrecks to Axis advances, disruption of repair facilties etc.
And the air war...things are more even than they looked since Malta -- though without much offensive punch left since the RN didn't have much left in the Mediterranean by May 1942 -- Malta, though "neutralized" had at least 100 flyable Spitfires at all times and every time the Axis built up in Cyrenica (I'm thinking of the Axis definition of Cyrenica -- ie just the bulge and Bengazi -- for the Axis, Tobruk was in Marmarnia or something) HMS Furious would sneak in another 50 Spitfires (3 times! and Furious survived where Ark Royal and Eagle did not).  So the Axis air preponderance was never quite as massive as it seemed.

Oh and PS:  8th Army had decided not to hold Tobruk if it was likely to be isolated.  Essentially, the Allies no longer had the shipping or the destroyers or the aircraft to sustain another siege of Tobruk.
The game makes holding Tobruk the main objective of both sides.  Since taking Tobruk was the assignment given to Rommel, it makes perfect sense, so if the Allies hold Tobruk on June 25, they win no matter what.  But if Rommel takes Tobruk but with excessive losses, that's just a draw and the game conditions specify that is a draw and also the historical result.

And PS again -- the scale looks like 2 miles or 3.2 km with 4 turns a day (dawn -- mostly administrative, Morning -- move and fight, Afternoon -- move and fight, and Dusk, mostly administrative, tank repairs and such)

[MengJiao]

Taking Ariete for a spin (afternoon of 26th).  Since 32 Army Tank Bde was drawn north and 27 division posted its heavy AT by the Trig Capuzzo, maybe a thrust into the area that historically became "the Cauldron" would be instructive.  Added air for both sides.  Lots of Italian biplanes and even some Fleet Air Arm biplane bombers (apparently they did Okay in the actual battle -- hard to imagine but there you have it):

  Things got bloody by the afternoon of the 27th.  The real killer is the Allied artillery.  I learned a lot about how the game system works:
1) stacking points are crucial and you often have to stack pretty deep.
2) given how low the op points turn out to be, there needs to be a method for forcing attacks using
supply points of some sort.  This will favor the Allies, but since Rommel and co usually have the upper hand
maybe that will work
3) air power is pretty iffy in terms of ...well everything...maybe because solitary play doesn't do well
still its fun...just don't expect much impact for a lot of effort
4) And dice rolling -- this game is spectacularly full of dice rolls of all kinds...which is okay with me, but look out

[W8taminute]

I don't mind rolling for many individual decisions, results, parameters, etc.  As long as this game is not rolling bags of dice for hours and comparing rolls ala Risk I'm fine.