The Desert War - Preview and development thread

[fairline]

Originally posted by Exile
Actually, Gareth, I've read a personal account of a British tanker who, during operation Crusader, was in a "Honey," the Brit slang for Stuarts. I don't recall if it was the 4th, 7th, or 22nd armored brigade that was equipped with them, but one of them certainly was.

The problems of the Stuart were revealed in the account. The tank commander's squadron was decimated by a German anti-tank unit and he was only saved because the first shell that struck his tank hit the water cans (spraying him with water, which he found incongruous, but refreshing). He only escaped by gunning his Honey over the edge of the coastal escarpment.

The British in north Africa received a plethora of American equipment at various times, and the Stuart, Grant, and Sherman all saw their first combats in various armored (or armoured, for those reluctant to endorse spelling reform, lol) brigades of the 8th army.

Yes they did Phenix (it was 4AB BTW; 7th and 22nd used Crusaders in Op Crusader) - but they only received the M3 Stuart, not the later M5 Stuart which was used in small numbers by the US in N. Africa. Eivind has both in his units file, and I think he could drop the M5. The Honey was only a light tank, but was as well armed and armoured as an early British cruiser.

You make an important point here - the acquisition of US tanks helped the Brits counter the Germans in the later WD battles.

Eivind: The progression of tanks available to the British went something like this:

Operation Compass: LTVI and various Cruisers (A9, A10, A13) for 7th Amd Div, Matilda II's for 7RTR

Operation Brevity: A9/A10/A13 and Matilda II

Operation Crusader: A9/A10/A13 Cruisers, Crusader, Stuart for 4, 7 and 22 Armd Bdes , Matilda, Valentine for 1 and 32 Army Tank Bdes

Gazala Battles: Crusaders, Grants, Stuarts for 1, 2, 4 and 22 Armd Bdes, Matilda and Valentine for 1 and 32 Army Tank Bdes

El Alamein: Crusader IIIs, Grants and Shermans for 1st, 7th and 10th Armd Divs, Stuarts for 4LAB, Valentines for the Tank Brigades

The Churchill was introduced in late 42 and fought in Tunisia with the tank Bdes

[fairline]

Originally posted by Exile
...(spraying him with water, which he found incongruous, but refreshing).

Typical Limey

[techumseh]

Regarding the scale, this reminds me of the North Africa wargame for the Europa series by GDW. It's a little more strategic in scope, and includes Malta and it's impact on Axis operations in North Africa, as well as the British invasion of Vichy controlled Lebanon and Syria. The naval war in the Mediterranean is abstracted.

In this case, I think you could trim the map north of Sicily without losing anything of importance.

The level of Axis pressure on Malta is key to how much supply and reinforcement reaches the Afrika Korps. Have you any ideas on how to tackle this?

How will the naval war be handled?

ps. this serves you right for picking a campaign everyone know something about. I prefer more obscure subjects myself.

[Case]

Originally posted by fairline
Firstly, the WDF and later 8th Army was a truly multi-national affair; the contribution of S. African and NZ divisions shouldn't be ignored, as I see you have British, Aussie and Indian troops already represented.

OTOH, the organisation and combat power of these fomations was identical. Having all the nationalities represented does add a hell of a lot of 'colour' though.

Originally posted by fairline
British divisions were motorised throughout the War and the inclusion of motorised infantry in addition to regular infantry is superflous.

...not to mention that truck-mounted infantry looks ugly As the soldiers got out their trucks before going into action these graphics could be simplified.

Originally posted by fairline
Only the Italian divisions in N. Africa suffered from a serious lack of motor transport

I'm not sure about that - the Commonwealth forces were short of transport during Operation Compass in 1940 - after the first phase of the campaign all that kept them going was the suprisingly large quantity of working trucks they captured from the Italians.

Originally posted by fairline
The Hurricane was the most important Allied fighter in the theatre, particularly in the ground attack role.

The P-40 must have come a very close second. The German aircraft all seem to have underpeformed in the theatre - I suspect that they were less able to cope with the climate than the more robust British and American designs.

Originally posted by fairline
The Honey was only a light tank, but was as well armed and armoured as an early British cruiser.

...and, more importantly, it was vastly more reliable than British tanks. It says a lot when crews are willing to give up somewhat more survivable tanks for something which doesn't break down all the time

[Eivind IV]

@Boco:
I havn't done the actual placements yet. I have them all counted out at my sheet though, ready for deployment. So I havn't done any actual tests yet, but I hope to include a lot of GoTo events, combined with the AI beeing alowed to build units traditionally, to make the AI more capable of holding in.

Greece will be invaded by Axis forces on the second turn of the scenario (april 1941).

Turkey's (and Saudi Arabia) only there for show. Completely impossible to attack and play. I've used the same "technique" as I did for the neutral states in my Norwegian Campaign scenario.

@Fairline:
Most of the action will be in Libya/Egypt after all, as that's where all the initial units are placed. Events will take things from there on, giving units and cash for various objectives. There's also a combination of railroad and regular road on the road northmost of the coast of Africa, so there's plenty of room for manouverability around more inland roads (no railways).

I agree with Case that having seperate countries representated adds more flavour. If it in end proves I need those slots for other units, I'll do so. But for now I want to keep it as simple as possible.

Apreciate the info on the units. Units have been remove and added according to your input.

Many units such as the tiger won't even be "researchable", but rather be given to the axis if the Allies reach Tunisia.

I'll try and make something on those operations via events. But some player performance should also decide the faith of the campaign.

@Sarsstock:
How about a title instead?

@techumseh:
For malta I plan to make a seperate "Malta unit", which will have a 50% chance of getting killed if attacked by a regular bomber. If it gets killed the Allies will loose 500 gold or so. Either that or create money for the Axis. This unit will respawn itself, so this effectively makes Malta impossible to capture. I can't think of any other way to represent Malta's role during the campaign.

I'm also thinking of removing war ships completely, but create some transporters after certain cities are captured. For example if Tunis is captured by the Allies.

@All:
I apreciate all the help I can get, so keep the comments coming!

[Justinianum]

Some considerations about units:

* Tiger tanks used in Tunisia were only 15
* The Semovente 75/18 (tank-hunter) was extensively used by italians
* You should add M14/40 tank; it was used as much as M 13/39
* The bulk of "bomber command" in Afrika was formed by Ju 87 Stuka and mainly from SM 79 Sparviero and CANT Z 1007bis Alcione operating mainly from Egean islands and metropolitan bases. SM 79 was, from 1941, only used as a torpedo-bomber
* P-39 Lightning was used extensively in the battle of Tunisia
* In the first phase of African Warfare the standard italian fighter were Macchi MC200 Saetta and FIAT G-50 Freccia ; also FIAT CR42 Falco was used. MC 202 Folgore was sent on Africa in late 1941
* Anti-tank guns used by British at El-Alamein were 90mm. Italian anti-tank guns were mainly high-speed 47mm (deadly against Crusaders but completely unuseful against Matilda). Italians used also some 90mm anti-tank-air cannons (as excellent as 88m, but very expensive to build)

Will the scenario finish in early 1943 or can continue later? In this case you should add a lot of other units that couldn't partecipate in african warfare but were available in mid '43

[Justinianum]

Here's some units that could be useful

M 13/39
M 14/40 (actually the two should look more similar, but perhaps an "intervention" from the "Tank-Master" Fairline could fix this problem )
CANT 1007bis Alcione
SM 79 Sparviero (bomber version)
SM 79 Sparviero (torpedo-bomber version)
FIAT G 50 Freccia

I see you used my MC 202 Folgore (I'm honored), but I made it some time ago and it's a bit "out to date", so I think I will be give you and "improved" version as soon as possible

[Broken_Erika]

i made an italian p40 heavy tank, but i don't think it was used in africa,

[Broken_Erika]

i tried to make an m-40 assault gun but i am no exactly pleased with the result,

[Jimmywax]

Sooo, what's going on? Any progress?

[Eivind IV]

Hello again!

Not really, Jimmy, I'm very much enjoying my vacation at the moment

[kobayashi]

are you going to start with the Italians being based by, was it Waverly? and then have the german forces come to the rescue.

As mentioned earlier by many, the best part of the scenario will be to design the resupply mechanism. I say have actual ships and actual AI unnits trying to sink those ships.

My vote is for a way to storm malta permanently, maybe you need to sacrifice supplies for North Africa and its a trade off.

p.s. consider the gigant transporter

[Eivind IV]

The scenario starts in march 1940. The Germans are already there, ready to strike.

I was initially thinking of having the "supplies" coming to one of the major N. African ports you control, but I will have to think about if maybe having the units land in Italy first ready to be transported is better.

I've also decided to make a sequal after this one, with the same units and same rules values etc, only with a large Libya-Egypt map.

Btw, does anyone know what type of artillery the various regiments/batallions around march 1940 used? Would maybe a single field artillery unit translate better to civ2?

[fairline]

Eivind, The Germans didn't arrive until 41, after a single British and single Australian division under Wavell and O'Conner had inflicted a massive defeat on the Italians, knocked out 150-200 000 troops and captured Cyrenaica. To have the Germans in place initially is completely un-historical

[Eivind IV]

Blah, I ment 1941 of course, as all my other posts say