Alamein 42 Designer Notes - Scenario Design Center · I. Designer Comments Why El Alamein? Some 35...

Alamein ‘42 Designer Notes

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Table of Contents

I. Designer Comments

Why El Alamein

The Map Challenge

The Order-of-Battle

Tanks by Type

OOB Organization & Command

Air, AAA and AT Guns

Explicit Supply

Interesting Units Components

Minefields

II. The History

Events leading up to Alamein ‘42

Events covered in Alamein ‘42

III. The Scenarios

Scenario Introduction

Scenario List

Scenario Overviews

IV. Bibliography

I. Designer Comments

Why El Alamein?

Some 35 years ago, I discovered wargames and my very first board game was the oldAvalon Hill boardgame called Africa Korps! So the Desert War has always held a special placein my heart. A long time passed before my partner, Dave "Blackie" Blackburn and I, teamedup with John Tiller to help make computer wargames, and it was Blackie who first suggestedthat we look at the desert for a Panzer Campaign. After all, he and I had previouslyresearched a game idea for another company in this theatre, one that never came to be, butwe had much of this material at hand, including a set of 1:100,000 scale maps which providedfairly detailed topographical data.

We learned shortly after, however, that Wig Graves was already well on the way with aTobruk '41 Panzer Campaign and, as there were only a few games in the series at that time,we thought the one desert title was perhaps enough. So the idea for the Panzer Campaign ElAlamein game went on to the back burner.

During this "back burner" period a number of new games were created and, with that, anumber of interesting enhancements were made in the game engine, including Explicit Supplyand Strategy|Operations. Also during this time, we designers learned new ways to take setpiece battles, battles such as Kursk '43 and Rzhev '42, where huge amounts of men, tanks,and guns were amassed along heavily fortified lines, and make a very interesting gaming

situation.

And so it is in Alamein '42, we felt we could offer a whole host of interesting options forbattles which included fluid, running gun fights like those near Gazala in May '42, the pursuitacross the desert leading to the early struggle for Alamein in July, as well as the traditionalSecond Alamein battle where Monty broke the Africa Korps' back. Furthermore, we had someneat ideas to involve Malta in an interesting standalone scenario and as a hypothetical "WhatIf" in the main campaign.

During this time a number of new books covering Alamein were published and these reallybegan to rekindle our awareness of this game idea. One book, by Jon Latimer, contained adetailed framework of the Order-of-battle (OOB) of both the sides involved. StephenBungray's "Alamein" was also published at this time, as well as the story of some of thefighting men told in the book "End of the Beginning" by Tim Clayton and Phil Craig. And therewas Bireman and Smiths' new book, which is in my opinion, misnamed "The Battle ofAlamein". I say this book is misnamed because it chronicles much of the fighting in the periodcovered by our game, not just the critical Alamein portion. The arrival of Montgomery is inPart 4, and Second Alamein in Part 5, so it really encompasses a summary of the desertwar.

All these new books got us thinking again, surely we could make a fascinating PanzerCampaign from this critical turning point in the desert, where the Western Allies turned the tidewith Germany at an obscure RR stop named El Alamein.

The Map Challenge!

As with any game, before any scenarios can be built you first need two critical pieces - theMap and the OOB. Both of these presented their own special challenge.

To properly cover the fighting in the Western Desert in 1942 we created a map that nowstands as the largest of any Panzer Campaign. It is huge! Fortunately, for the Gazala battles,we were able to use some of Tobruk '41 game map created by Wig Grave's, with manythanks to Wig. But we still had a huge area to cover. As previously mentioned, we had quite alot of coverage from photocopied 100,000 maps, from a previous project, which helpedtremendously. It is desert terrain, which is more simplistic to make than other maps in theseries, but we used all sources that we could to try to accurately portray the area. Now someof the references did not always agree, trails are often difficult to find on any two sources thatmatched. We also went on an exhausting search to find just where the railroad ran, as it hadbeen extended by 1942 and almost reached Tobruk. Where sources didn't match, we appliedour best "guesstimates" based on a consensus from all the sources. But of these instances,few were critical to game play. Suffice it to say, we did not have a map that showed everypatch of broken, or rough ground, so some latitude was used here.

When we first started it was suggested that we make it all the way back to El Agheila, but thisreally was impractical because of the distances involved, however, there is still lots of map forplayers to use for their own scenarios. Another important point is the use of an "inset" mapfor the Malta Operation. We quickly discounted putting in Malta as a separate file, because wewanted it for a Strategy | Operation in the game, and it wasn't practical to place it correctly onthe map as it is some 960 km ENE of Tobruk and that is a lot of flat blue sea to cover.

We would also like to thank Jason Petho for dusting off some of his unfinished work on Malta.Jason has been working on "A Battle Atlas: Operazione C3", which is as yet unpublished, butshould be available in 2004-05 as his time allows for working on it. As you will see in thescenarios, we included Malta as a rather interesting twist on the main campaign as well as aninteresting "What If" standalone scenario.

In the end we were pleased with the results of our map. We elected to make areas on thesouth of the map as "impassable", to show the Qattara Depression and areas which were notuseful for the game. The look and feel of the map is a good representation of the area wherethe battle took place.

The Order-of-Battle

The second challenge that we had to overcome was the designing an Order of Battle thatcovered the time period we wanted to cover in the game. It seemed simple enough at theoutset. As previously indicated, we started with Latimer's OOB for 2nd Alamein and it provideddetail down to the regiment, and battalion, which included attachments at the Corps and Armylevel. This was very good information to work from.

However, we quickly discovered that there were more units involved in the earlier fighting thatwere not included in the detail. What was more confusing was that divisions in the earlyfighting were made of different brigades, depending on the time period. The 5th IndianDivision was a very good example of this. Also, at times, some brigades were detached andfunctioned as parts of different divisions. A prime example of this is the British 44th InfantryDivision, a unit that made a poor showing as a division at Alam Halfa in August and was splitup, with each brigade serving as the infantry component for an armored division in SecondAlamein.

In the end, we settled on one single Order-of-Battle file, with a section covering the earlybattles, (including Gazala up to First Alamein), and a second complete repeat of the OOB forthe Second Alamein battle. In this second part there are some different divisions, differentorganizational structure for some units as well as newer tanks are available to both sides.There is a third component to the OOB and this is the part for the "Invade Malta" option. Forthe British this is a completely separate organization so that the Allied aircraft from the DesertAir Force, based in Egypt cannot fly air support missions in Malta as it is obviously way too faraway. However, Axis aircraft can reach Malta easily by redeploying to air bases in Sicily andTunisia.

But it was not just the unit organization that was scrambled from time period to time period.This period in the desert saw a great transition in the tanks. For example, "the Queens Bay,2nd Dragoons Guards", were equipped with 2 squadrons of Crusaders and one of Grants, inthe Early Battles, but by second Alamein, this unit was made up of one squadron ofCrusaders, and two of Shermans. So you see, not only the tank type changed, but also thenumber of light vs. battle tanks squadrons, that made up the Armored Division organization,had changed as well. These issues will be discussed in a later section entitled "Tanks byType."

The Italians were another story altogether. You can easily find out which divisions werepresent and how the Corps were structured. With a little digging you could even find out whichregiments made up which division. But how were these regiments structured? How manytanks and armored cars were present at each critical phase of the battle? Finding detailedinformation in English books for the Italians is spotty at best. So for this we turned to FrancoAgostini, an Italian gentleman who we owe our thanks. Franco came through on the numbersand provided valuable research and input on the Italian part of the OOB. I met Franco on aforum when he was taking me to task for issues he felt needed reviewing in the Sicily '43game. He struck me as a man who knew what he was talking about.

Below are some sample excerpts of information Franco provided. On Armored Cars he wrote:

I rewrite all situations

20/5/42 39 efficient 1 at repair

30/5/42 23 efficient 15 at repair

5/8/42 12 efficient 4 at repair (in 5 days)

27/09/42 25 efficient and 22 at repair (but it is all AB at repair not only from III Nizza, thereare 1 other cavalry unit and 1 bersaglieri unit on AB)

Of the Ariete he said:

20/5/42

132° fanteria carrista (Ariete) 107 M13/40, 63 M14/41 efficient; 16 and 7 at repair

132° artiglieria(ariete) 17 75/18 (semoventi) efficient, 3 at repair

So you can see how valuable his contribution was to the project. Franco was alwaysconcerned that his English was difficult to understand, and at times it was tricky to follow, butthere are two things I can say for sure on this point. One, is that his English is far better thanmy Italian, and secondly, the Italian portion of the OOB is far better that we could have donewithout his insight. For this Franco we thank you.

Tanks by Type

Of all the Panzer Campaign Order-of-Battles I've had a hand helping to make, never beforehas the type, and number of tanks by type, been so important. This fact is likely not one thatwill be missed by many people. Also there are so many books available, even the dozen ormore I relied on as primary reference, were enough to overwhelm you with details.Unfortunately some of this detail just didn't always add up.

For example, for the opening battle at Gazala, Delaney says in his book, "Fighting the DesertFox", that there were 843 British tanks, a quarter of which were Grants. On the other hand,Mitcham in his book, "Rommel's Greatest Victory", provides a table showing British 850 tanks,which is close enough for an operational games purposes and so, given mechanicalbreakdowns, is essentially a match with Delaney's 843. But Mitcham puts the total number ofGrants at 167, which is slightly less than a fifth. This is a pretty significant difference, as anadditional 45 Grants is more than twice the total number of German Pz-IIIj's that bothsources say the other side had. With only 19 Pz-IIIj's, and less than 40 Pz IV in service atthis time, according to both Delaney and Mitcham, you can see where 45 more of the bestBritish tanks will be a factor!

So which source do you believe? And when you decide what information to use and whichpieces to disregard, how do you determine which unit gets what type of tanks? This too variesdepending upon the date.

At this point you have to dig a little deeper. We used whatever we could find on the overallorganization and cross-reference information in the various books, by looking up the referenceto each regiment listed in the index, and then reading each in turn for clues, or mention, ofthe type of tanks being used. In researching the battles, Latimer and Perrett indicated, thatby the time of Alamein, the British tank brigades were built around two battle tank regimentsand one light tank regiment. A regiment is made up of three squadrons, each of whichconsists of roughly 17 tanks, so there are between 50 and 60 tanks in a regiment. In theearlier battles, such as those depicted in the scenarios around the Gazala Line, theorganization was the other way around, with two light and one medium regiment. Meanwhile,the Army tank brigades were made up of infantry tanks that were mainly Matilda andValentine tanks.

At this point, the similarities begin to break down. Mitcham says regiments of the 4th ArmoredBrigade were made up of one Grant and two Crusader squadrons, while he says the units ofthe 2nd and 22nd Armored Brigades were made up of two Grant and one Stuart squadrons.But it can't be this way for a couple reasons. First of all if there were two Grant squadrons inthe 2nd and 22nd, with one squadron of the 4th Brigade also being Grants, that would be 15squadrons of Grants, or roughly 255 Grant tanks. But remember, from the informationabove, that there were likely 67 Grants available. At 14 Grant tanks per 15 squadrons, therewould still be too many Grants and not enough other squadrons available to make up thetotals of the other tank types to arrive at the grand total of 850 total tanks, given a fixednumber of regiments and squadrons.

Mitcham, in his chart on tanks by type, shows 277 infantry tanks and quotes another sourcethat says these were made up with 110 Matildas and 167 Valentines. These 277 Infantry

tanks equipped the five regiments of the Army tank brigades. But in the text Mitcham saysthat three of these regiments are Matilda's and the other two are Valentine's. However, usingthree squadrons of 17 tanks per regiment, clearly it must be two regiments of Matilda's andthree of Valentine's for the math to work out.

The net result of all this is was an unending task of shuffling tanks by type around to varioussquadrons, all the while keeping the tanks type totals constant. Thus, during the early days ofmaking the game, while I was in bed reading Clayton and Craig's (2002), "End of theBeginning", and came across a reference such as " …22nd Brigade had driven right onto oneof the best executed tank traps of the desert war. As Grants and Crusaders burst into flames…" I would stop reading, get out of bed, return to my computer to make the appropriatechange in the Order of Battle in the interest of keeping the game as historically correct aspossible.

However, while it is important, in Strawson (1967), that we can read that, "A Sqdn of the 8thHussar's was made up of Honey's, while B and C Sqdn were Grants", in the big picture, thegame will yield the most historical results as long as the accurate tanks total by type asdocumented by authors, such as Delaney (1998) and Mitcham (2001), is respected in theGame Order of Battle.

I'd be remiss at this point if I didn't single out the early assistance of Rick Bancroft in this"tank tally" period. I plugged numbers and tank types from various sources into the gameOOB file, Rick knocked together a great working spreadsheet and populated it with the OOBdata, so we could see how the detailed changes we made as a result of our researchreflected the total number of tanks by type.

OOB Organization & Command

One guiding principle in the OOB, that was essential for this game, was to include enoughdetail to give the right feel for the game, without having too many units, which would slowdown the fluid action. Panzer Campaigns original design was at battalion level, but therequirement for company units was demanded by the tanks. As discussed above, Britisharmored regiments were made up of 3 squadrons of tanks of very different speeds, defense,and firepower. So company sized or squadron units of around 17 tanks seemed to be thebest solution.

Armored cars on both sides posed their own problem. Previously, in Tobruk '41, theseformations, as well as the tanks, were made up of units as small as two and three vehicles,as they did often operate in these small units. But this provides so many units that a gameplayer, with his "God like" point-of-view in a turn based game, can exploit. Yet company sizedunits representing the full squadrons didn't have the correct feel either.

What we used here was a lesson learned from the development of the Sicily '43 game withthe deployment of the 82nd Airborne Division. What we desired was a widely scattered dropof penny-packet troops, which slowly combined to form more effective fighting units. Thesolution in Sicily was the "double sized platoon" or "half company" units. This gave the gamethe widely spread drop, but didn't dominate the play with double the units like platoons wouldhave done.

Thus for Alamein '42 we went with units of around 9 vehicles per armored car unit for bothsides. A spin-off advantage this provided was the combing units' rule, where when three unitsof the same type were combined into a single units, it functions at its best for Battle Fatigue.With upwards of six units of nine armored cars each, there was an opportunity for players tohave more than one very effective "battalion sized" unit, from a single armored car battalionin the game.

We did the same thing for the German Panzers, that is used the "half sized company", butfor more than just the reason outlined above for the armored cars. For a start, the Germansat this time, were simply the masters of the desert when it game to flexible deployments oftheir tanks. Like the British, the Germans had a number of different types of Panzers, butunlike the British, they mixed their tank types within even the smallest platoon formations.The wide difference in firepower of these tank types can be seen by the values we haveassigned to them in the game.

As the Germans were infamous for creating "adhoc" formations on the fly during a battle, wedid away with the "Battalion" level in the formal OOB Organization. That is, instead of aPanzer regiment made up of a couple Battalions, each with a few companies of platoons of amixed variety of tanks, even at the smallest level possible, we simply made the Panzerregiment to be made up of a large group, over 20, half sized company units (or doubleplatoons) of roughly eight tanks.

These panzer building blocks allowed the flexibility to accurately have the correct number ofPanzers by type within the regiment, while allowing for "adhoc" combined units where, forexample, Pz-IIIh's of different companies and battalions fought together most effectively.

But we weren't done completely with tilting the playing field when it came to tanks and theflexibility one side held over the other. The last thing that we saw that the Germans wereregarded as "Out Generalling" the British Command in was control, so we removed theBrigade HQ units from the German OOB and left only a single Division HQ, with a very largecommand radius, to establish that last missing effect of, "drive the tanks anywhere andappear as effective fighting units where they are least expected." The Germans can thuscreate KG units, and while there are no KG HQs in the game, the Axis player doesn't need toconcern himself with this extra detail. However he will still have to deal with Regimental HQs forthe Italians.

One the flip side, not only do the British lines of command have to run from the fighting units,to Brigade and up to Division, but the Brigade HQ quality rating is less and the commandradius is lower than Brigade HQ's in other games of the Series. This we felt was fair, becausethe British struggled in the desert to find out how to make the best use of their equipmentand men together in an effective fighting force.

The effects of these tank organization and command issues we believe does justice to theoperational feel of this battle and provides similar strengths and weaknesses for both sides.

Air, AAA and AT Guns

As was a practice in some games, starting back with Normandy '44, there are a number ofunits intentionally left out of the Order-of-Battle. For example, much if not all of the fighteraircraft have been removed from the Air component. At the start of the Gazala, according toBungay, there were 500 Axis Aircraft which included ~200 Bf 109's. These Aircraftconcentrated their effort on the Allied "Desert Air Force" fighters and thus had little directimpact on the ground war as ground attack aircraft. This has been built into the Interceptionrate as defined in the Parameter Data. Many of the remaining aircraft in the Axis air arsenalwere Italian. Because of their lower serviceability, I've reduced the number of aircraft slightlyto compensate. This way the total Air Unit Availability (parameter) for the Axis could remainstable, and not have a German aircraft unavailable due to Italian aircraft serviceability.

The Order-of-Battle includes only some of the Allied fighters, as these were more prone to beused in ground attacks, but were kept busy by the German fighters. This fact has alwaysbeen a something we had to keep in mind when we considered aircraft in this, a largelyground based operational game. Allied Air strength in the Middle East combined included moreaircraft that could be called on during the time period covered in the game. However, thesesquadrons often had other equally vital duties in the Middle East to fulfill, such as maritimeinterdiction of supplies. Thus they were not all available for every mission to support theground troops in the desert.

It should also be noted that the Allies prior to the Second Battle of Alamein flew so manyphoto air recon mission over the German lines that, according to Latimer, they claimed theyknew virtually every gun position. Yet when the fighting started, despite the heaviestconcentration of artillery up to that point in the war, the Allied were still unable to neutralize allof the known AT gun and artillery positions. Also, the accuracy of pin point targeting byaircraft performing level bombing for ground support missions was not up to the standard ofdive bombing support missions like those later in the war, so Allied level bombers such asBoston’s and Baltimore’s have been designated as heavy bombers in game terms so thatthey use the "Carpet Bombing" rules when they attack – thus the scatter my hit another hexthan planned, possibly even a friendly hex.

The Germans too had some additional Recon Air units on the books. Historically, however,these German air recon units had little influence at this later stage of the battle and theirinclusion was unwarranted. German command at the start of the Second Battle of Alameinwas paralyzed by the ferocity when the barrage opened up, and many communication lines tothe forward units were knocked out. In some other cases, available German air missions werereduced to account for air strikes being driven off by Allied Anti-Aircraft units, whichthemselves are often omitted intentionally from the OOB, particularly the light AAA Guns.Historically these units spent most of their time in their true AA role, and thus are not needed

as many players would not resist the urge to avail themselves of these units for groundcombat uses.

Of course German 88's must be included, as they came into common use as extremelyeffective Anti-Tank weapons in the desert. Thus these have been accounted for asaccurately as possible throughout the game. Also, some heavier British Bofors AA Guns havebeen included, but by and large most of the Allied AA Guns are represented in the AA combatvalues assigned to the ground combat units.

The same can be said of a very a large number of the lighter AT Guns on both sides - Allied2-pdrs and Axis 37mm. There are guns of this caliber and sometimes larger which were partof the infantry company units on each side. This is reflected in the game Hard Attack valuesof these units and not separate unit counters, as one of our goals was to keep the unitdensity as low as possible and yet still reflect all these weapons deployed in their historicalmanner. This manner of deployment is factored into the reasoning for the Hard Range aswell. While it can be documented that a British 2-pdr has no less range than a German 37mmAnti-Tank Gun, it can also be documented that time and again the British armour blunderedinto unseen German AT Guns - even at Second Alamein. Thus we've given the GermanInfantry units a hard range of 1 and the Allied Units a hard attack range of Zero (thus onlyeffective when assaulted) because of how these weapons were used and effective historically,and not just how far they could throw a shell.

Even with the above in effect, there still needed to be some separate Anti-Tank Gun Unitsand these have been assigned a higher defense value than in other games such as Tobruk.The reasoning for this was simply the survivability of the units in a sustained fight. One needonly read about the British defense at the Snipe Position, or the terrible toll German and evenItalian AT Guns took on advancing British armour in various phases of the battle, to justifythese values.

Suffice to say, we didn't just stumble into the value the way they are presented in the game.The testers, Ed Williams, Rick Bancroft, Paul Sinatra and Bob Hutchison, tried a number ofpotential models, each time weighting the specific effect on a small scale, as well as the overalleffect on the scenario and larger picture of the battle.

All opinions didn't agree 100% with how Blackie and I modeled the values in the final OOB, butthen this is a part of wargaming we've all come to accept. If players wish to modify the unitsand combat values in the game, then they are free to experiment with the Order-of-BattleEditor, as I am sure many of them will. I would, however, encourage anyone with the desireto tinker with the values to keep in mind the results they get both on the small scale, such asone unit firing at another, as well as the effect of the casualties, victory and overall strengthof the two sides over the longer period of the battles.

Explicit Supply

The war in the desert, at least insofar as the longer mobile campaigns are concerned, wasvery much a war about Supply. So here was an ideal place for the Panzer Campaigns ExplicitSupply rules. Explicit Supply, an optional supply rule where players moved actual Supply Trucksunits on the map, has been a part of the series since the fourth title, Tobruk ’41. There are afew Explicit Supply Scenarios in this game too, and these are noted with the lowercase *s*after the filename such as #0619_01s_Tobruk_to_Alamein.scn. In general, for Explicit Supplyto have much impact on play, the effect must be felt over time. Thus this option is availableonly in the more mobile campaigns, where supply is not only a factor, but where the players,particularly the German must move his supply forward and selectively decide which units tore-supply and when.

Determining the amount of Explicit Supply present at the start of a battle, and the number,size, and frequency of supply as the battle progresses--given the changing size of eacharmy--has been a mathematical balancing act, based on a formula derived by John Tiller. Theformula has been revised over time and with practice from previous games to arrive atappropriate levels. But in this title, supply calculations comparable to those used in Bulge ‘44,Korsun ’44 and Market-Garden ’44 just didn’t work right because of the more running gunstyle of battle in the desert.

Therefore we decided to do a few things differently for Alamein. First we dropped the Defensestrength value of the Supply Units due to their vulnerability to air interdiction in the wide-opendesert. Adding to the vulnerability of trucks and in fact to the vulnerability of all units in openterrain in this game is the fact that we made open terrain "really" open by putting a positivecombat modifier on Clear terrain. Our reasoning is that there are just not as many places tohide in the desert as in clear hex in Russia, Normandy or Sicily, for example.

While trucks speeds on average were the same, for an added dimension we used differentUnit Quality levels for various truck units, more or less at random, to give a skilled player morefactors to judge when plotting his move. The next thing we did differently was to reduce theSupply radius in which units become automatically supplied by Supply Trucks in DeployedMode. The idea for this came first from accounts in the Alamein book by Latimer, wherethere were numerous accounts of tanks leaving the infantry to fend for themselves as theywithdrew to take on more fuel. There were also excerpts concerning fuel trucks been blown to

pieces as they ran the risk to move far forward to support the tanks. So the earliest testswere conducted with the Supply range as low as 1 and 3, so that a player literally had to drivehis supply trucks right up to the unit – or pull the unit back to the truck to draw fuel and\orammo. However, values this low made a player too conscious of driving his supply trucksaround and took away from the game so we raised it to a range of 5. This is still considerablyshorter than previous values of around 10, but it showed a new and important considerationand advantage to the Axis Side.

In this Title, supply has to be tight for the Axis player, and the way the Explicit Supply Ruleswork, any unit in need of Supply that is within range of a Deployed Supply Truck isautomatically serviced. Keeping the Supply Range short as we have means an Axis player canbe more particular about who gets supplies. In fact he may be able to better control thesupply, and to funnel it to his most powerful troops, instead of squandering it on weaker units.

There is much information in the literature on Supply in North Africa, including actual tonnagesdelivered to port and the amount of fuel required to move the fuel forward for the panzersfighting at the front. However, if players want a succinct look at supply, refer to chapterthree of Bungay’s "Alamein" which is listed in the bibliography.

During the later stages of testing when we were hammering out the explicit supply levels, Irelied heavily on the input of tester and Korea ’85 scenario designer Ed "Volcano" Williams towork the kinks out of what we were trying to do here. Thanks, Ed, you were a big help asalways.

Interesting Units Components

In any game there is usually a few units or game components which attract attention andraise a few eyebrows in players. Examples have included "Magen" or "Ohr" units in MarketGarden ’44, the special "Stomach" and "Ear" Battalions and Goliath remote control tanks inKursk ’43. El Alamein ’42 has a few as well, and I thought I would point out some that cameup for discussion during the testing of the game.

On the Allies’ side, of note are the Long Range Desert Group units. These small, fast andlargely combat ineffective units in terms of an Operational Game can still pack a punch, asthey do have an assault value. That is all that is required for capturing unescorted ExplicitSupply units moving forward to support the Axis drive on Alamein. Their presence alone maymean the German will have to designate some motorized units to escort duty. However, evenin games without Explicit Supply, the presence of these units can cause zone-of-controleffects on the Virtual Supply Lines which follow the vital coastal road, and reduce the flow ofVST Supply to the front.

The Long Range Desert Group units can also spot units moving up – especially those in Travelmode and thus more vulnerable to attack -- and can call in Air Missions. They are also thegame "Deception Units," and as such they can deploy to interdict reinforcements. In thisgame’s Parameter or PDT, these Deception units have higher values than ever before, so

they can move around in the desert in a manner befitting the effect of the original Special AirService Units.

The Long Range Desert Group units arrive with a high degree of variability near the southedge of the map. The just "appear" in these non-critical areas, and can scatter wildly in theirentry hex. Their method of entry prevents a Human German Opponent from waiting in anarea for them to show up, even knowing the time and or place. I believe these units will add avery interesting dimension to an already challenging Campaign Game.

As Deception played a role in the Desert War, the Allied Order-of-Battle for the SecondAlamein contains six units amounting to 108 "Dummy Tanks". What effect these units mighthave in play is hard to gauge, but in play between Human opponents, they might just keepthe Axis player from acting with too much haste when considering deployment of his reserves.

There are also some native troops in the Commonwealth ANZAC section. These fiercewarriors are the Maori, made up of natives from New Zealand. There is only one battalion ofthese units, so their presence will not dominate the battle. However, you will see they havesome different combat values and a different image in the unit window, will make them standout. Some other units which may stand out are Commonwealth units in the 1st Free French,which represent the Jewish Volunteer Battalion. This unit made a notable stand at Bir Hacheimin the Gazala Battles.

On the Axis side, part of the 15th Rifle Brigade in what was "Group Cruewall" in the GazalaBattles is made up of German French Foreign Legion Troops. While I have not been able tofind much detail on these units, I did read that Rommel thought them a largely undisciplinedgroup, but one he respected as fighters. On a more humorous note, I came across areference that indicated Rommel would instruct his driver to "lock up the spare" whenever hevisited them in the field for fear they might strand him in their own self interest by takinganything that would aid themselves and their unit.

During the month of July, Rommel was facing a serious manpower crisis in North Africa.Some of the reinforcements sent to his aid were units of Ramcke’s Parachute Brigade whichwere flown in from Crete. Of note with these Parachute troops was the abundance of thebrand new MG-42 belt fed machine-gun, made out of a light alloy that was virtuallysand-proof. For this reason the components of this brigade have a higher soft attack rating aswell as a soft attack range of 2 hexes. One of the battalions from this brigade, FJ-Lehr, leadby one Major Otto Burkhardt, was equipped with a variety of experimental or "SpecialWeapons," which included among other things some very early Recoilless rifle, a flare gunmodified to fire an explosive charge, some fully automatic rifles, and a mortar that bounced

the round before exploding so as to spread shrapnel at chest height. This unit’s chiefdrawback is the lack of motorized transport, may be more apparent in some earlier campaign"What If" Strategy/Operations where an earlier arrival of Ramcke’s Brigade is depicted.

Minefields

Mines in the Panzer Campaign Series often comes under scrutiny of players who feel that allmines that are "theirs", thus friendly mines, should remain visible at all times, so the owningplayer won't accidentally step on them. On the surface this idea is appealing to players whothink top down. They reason that because they can see them on the map at some point,that HQ would know where they were and thus all units would avoid them.

True enough. But I like to explain that just because HQ (ie You the player) knows where allthe mines are, doesn't mean that each and every units in the games also knows where eachand every mine. Furthermore, even if each unit on the map were to have a specialty "MineOfficer" to keep track of them all, then who is to say mistakes wouldn't still happensometimes. So for Alamein '42, where mines play such a dominant role, I collected a fewreferences to illustrate the point that, "There is no such thing as a friendly Minefield."

Here is a good quote from Clayton and Craig - "End of the Beginning" which characterizes the

design feelings about Mines:

June 5-14: "Ordered forward toward the Sidra Ridge from the north, 32nd Army Tank Brigadefirst ran on to an unmarked minefield laid by British infantry, ..."

June 18-20: ".., their platoon of four 6-pounders had entered Tobruk through the minefield thatsurrounded it, a minefield full of mines whose location was by now unknown to the defenders,and which destroyed the odd portee."

But this next reference says it best. It comes from "Rommel's Greatest Victory" by SamualW. Mitcham.

The confusion of battle is perhaps best illustrated by the exploit of Maj. C. C. Lomax, thecommander of HQ Squadron of the 9th Queen's Royal Lancers. Leading a column of supplytrucks and trying to find the 201st Guards Brigade Box at Knightsbridge, he veered too farnorth and got lost in the darkness. Suddenly he spotted a low trip wire, which denoted theboundary of a minefield. His driver hit the brakes and they stopped a few feet from the wire.Two sentries approached and identified themselves as Guardsmen. Lomax asked if this wasthe Knightsbridge Box, and they replied that it was.

"How very fortunate!" the major exclaimed. "Another few yards and we would all have been inthe minefield."

"On the contrary, sir," one of the sentries replied, "another few yards and you will be out of it."

He and his whole convoy (which was following in his tracks) had passed through the entireminefield without hitting a single mine!

Even when crossing a known "Friendly Minefield", in a lane swept clean to allow friendly troopsto pass, there were mishaps as illustrated by this reference from Jon Latimer's "Alamein":

On the route following 22nd Battalion came the Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry on a mine-free trackcleared and marked by the Kiwi infantry. 'Lurch, clank, bump. Up comes the dust again andbefore we've gone few yards we're back in the "pea-souper" once more,' recalled the,Yeomanry's historian as the precious protecting darkness dissolved. At 0600 hours the leadsquadron was well forward of the infantry and thus became the only armoured regiment tobreak out beyond the infantry on the first day of the battle. But it was at a heavy price. Those inthe rear of the column have been speculating about the origin of a new addition to the carnivalof noise which is going on around them. Something different, this one. Deeper and moreearth-shaking than the rest. Woomph! This is quite unmistakable. A very sinister sound.'Mines' - despite the declaration that the lanes were clear. The armour ought to have been clearof the minefields, but 'Woo-umph! There it goes again And this time there is no mistake. Aspurt of flame appears in the distance through a gap in the fog and quickly grows into a flamingmass.

So accidentally running into mines, be they in "cleared lanes", or stumbling into a minefield,even a known minefield was not uncommon. Therefore, when you run a unit into a hexcontaining a mine - even one of your own - one that you wouldn't have run into had the hexbeen marked, because you had another unit in the line-of-sight a few turns ago, then thinknothing more of it. These sorts of things happened, not only here in the desert, but in alltheaters of WWII.

With mines in the game unseen in hexes when they disappear from the players view,

understand that this is not a bug or a problem that needs to be fixed. This is just part of thegame, all be it one aspect that some players find frustrating, due to the fact that had theysee the mine on the map at some point from their "God-like" overhead perspective.

BE WARNED! THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FRIENDLY MINEFIELD

If you step on a mine during game play, you might be lucky like Major Lomax was in thereference above. If you're moving units near to known mines, but in places you thought wereclear, and you step on a mine, well that happens, even if you are delayed and you lose someunits, well that happened too. Mines are just part of the game, and they sure can befrustrating when you run into them when you least expected to, with a unit you really neededsomewhere, that is now delayed, disrupted, or weakened, because of that damn "friendlyminefield."

Click here to jump to The History Section

II. The History

As a wargamer and a history buff myself interested in the Desert War, names and battles likeAlamein, Tobruk and Crusader are certainly familiar. But details of the events and the order ofthings tend to become less clear when one has been playing games and reading on otherfronts. And while there are numerous published sources anyone could access at a publiclibrary, I thought it prudent to include a very brief synopsis of events leading up to the periodcovered by this game and a few brief facts to help frame the action and scenarios included inAlamein '42.

For this I would like to thank Garreth Hughes from "World War 2 Timeline" ( http://www.worldwar-2.net/ ) for the use of his dates and facts. Players interested in all thedetails are encouraged to visit the full list of events at his website under Timelines => War inthe Desert, and then select the year.

Events leading up to Alamein '42

1940August:Five Italian divisions and 200 tanks in Cyrenaica under Marshal Graziani, cross theLibyan/Egyptian border and advance toward Sidi Barrani in Egypt. Italian advance in Egyptcontinues as they capture Sidi Barrani, 60 miles from frontier. At this point the Italians halttheir offensive and begin to construct a number of fortified camps.

December:The Western Desert Force which is 30,000 strong and under the command of Wavell takes tothe offensive 'Operation Compass'. While pursuing the retreating Italians, the British forces inNorth Africa take Sollum, Fort Capuzzo and several other crucial Italian defensive positions.They also capture another 38,000 Italians along the way. Mussolini requests Germanassistance for his hard-pressed troops in Cyrenaica, asking for a Panzer Division, Luftwaffe

http://www.worldwar-2.net/

units and various logistical support.

1941January:Tobruk surrenders to British and Australian troops who capture 25,000 Italians, along with 208guns and 87 tanks. Combined British and Australian losses were about 450. The Britishgovernment now orders Wavells XIII Corps to capture Benghazi.

February:Italian forces make repeated attempts to break through the weak British blocking forces atBeda Fomm, but cannot. Lieutenant General Erwin Rommel is appointed to command theGerman forces being sent to Africa. The Italians surrender 20,000 men, 200 guns and 120tanks to just 3,000 British troops.

Lieutenant General Rommel arrives in Tripoli and two weeks later, reconnaissance elements ofthe German 5th Light Division clash with British forces for the first time in Africa, at Nofilia nearEl Agheila.

March:Rommel, conducts a limited offensive to recapture El Agheila from the British, which succeedswith startling ease. This encourages Rommel to push forward towards Mersa Brega.

April:Elements of the 5th Light Division capture Mechili and threaten to cut of the 9th AustralianDivision which is withdrawing at speed towards Tobruk along the coast. Derna is captured the5th Light Division along with Generals Neame and O'Connor later in the day.

Rommel makes an attempt to capture Tobruk off the march. However, the 9th AustralianDivision repulses the attack, forcing the Germans to think again. By now the Germans arepretty exhausted after 3 weeks of continuous action and their vehicles in serious need of anoverhaul

German advance spearheads capture Sollum. Rommel receives orders from Berlin that he isto consolidate on the Egyptian frontier and concentrate of capturing Tobruk. Only then will hebe allowed to push into Egypt. But the German troops cross the Egyptian border and capturethe Halfaya Pass, forcing the British to pull back to a defensive line running from Buq Buq onthe coast to Sofafi, some 50km in to the desert. The British also begin construction of amajor defensive line in front of Mersa Matruh. (This Defensive line will play a role in theAlamein '42 game 14 months later)

May:The British Army under Auchinleck, launch an offensive, operation 'Brevity' against the AfrikaKorps and manage to recapture Halfaya Pass, Sollum and Capuzzo.

The Afrika Korps counter-attack against the British and retake Sollum and Capuzzo, althoughthe Halfaya Pass remains in British hands. Berlin orders Rommel to leave Tobruk to the

Italians and to concentrate the Afrika Korps near the Egyptian border.

June:The British Army begins 'Operation Battleaxe' to relieve Australian held Tobruk and thenadvance towards Derna. However, they meet fierce counter attacks by the Afrika Korps andare unable to make any headway.

July:General Wavell is relieved of his command as C-in-C of the Middle East, by General Sir ClaudeAuchinleck.

August:A brigade of the 9th Australian Division which is besieged at Tobruk is relieved by sea, asPolish reinforcements arrive. After demands from the Australian Prime Minister, the Britishagree to relieve the remainder of the 9th Australian Division from Tobruk.

September:General Sir Claude Auchinleck begins planning forthcoming British Offensive, 'OperationCrusader'

November:'Operation Crusader', the British Eighth Army's offensive to relieve Tobruk begins. Rommel,who arrives back from Rome that day, is caught by surprise, allowing the British XXX Corps toadvance 50-miles and capture the axis airfield 10 miles south of Sidi Rezegh.

The Tobruk garrison links up with the Eighth Army and the Siege is lifted

December:The German and Italian forces withdraw to a defensive position at Gazala. The Eighth Armyattacks. Rommel, fearful that the British will outflank him, orders the retreat. The Britishretake Benghazi.

1942January:Rommel's battered forces reach the Tripolitanian frontier having evaded all British attempts tocut them off.

Without consulting higher authority, Rommel launches a counter-offensive against the 8thArmy. The 21st Panzer Division quickly seizes Mersa Brega,

German troops capture Msus, which threatens the 4th Indian Divisions position at Benghazi.Lieutenant General Ritchie, orders the 4th Indian Division to withdraw to a line running fromDerna to Mechili, but this order is countermanded by General Auchinleck who wanted the 8thArmy to counter-attack. However, the 8th Army was to widely dispersed and Rommel’s forceswere advancing to quickly.

February:After just over 2 weeks of frenetic action, Rommel's counter-offensive comes to a halt infront of the Gazala line, a series of self supporting fortified boxes running south from Gazalafor a hundred miles to Bir Hacheim. Although not complete, it presents too much of anobstacle for the Afrika Korps who by this time are running low on fuel and reserves.


Events covered in Alamein '42

1942May:The battle for the Gazala line begins (Operation Venezia), as the Afrika Korps thrusts aroundthe southern end of the Eighth Army's defensive positions towards Tobruk. However the FreeFrench forces at Bir Hacheim manage hold up this advance.

The battle of the 'Cauldron' begins as Rommel attacks the fortified box in the Gazala line thatis held by the 150th Brigade of the British 50th Division. The Italians attack from the west aselements of the Afrika Korps attack from the east. Meanwhile Rommel's anti-tank gunners,repulse a number of British armoured counter-attacks against his position in the 'Cauldron'.However, Lieutenant General Ritchie is hampered by his inability to concentrate his armour andso is unable to relieve the 150th Brigade.

June:The Eighth Army launches a counter-attack against the Afrika Korps forces that are inside the'Cauldron. This is codenamed 'Aberdeen', but went disastrously wrong from the start, with aninfantry tank brigade being destroyed in minefields and an Indian infantry brigade attackingthe wrong positions. This left the remainder of the force, the 22nd Armoured Brigade to berepulsed easily by the untouched German defenses. British losses for this operation were 150tanks, 133 guns and 6,000 troops


German and Italian troops captures Bir Hacheim finally from the Free French, who had beentotally cut off since the 26 May 1942.

Lieutenant General Ritchie gives General Norrie permission to withdraw XXX Corps past Tobrukand as far as Mersa Matruh to re-equip. General Gott's XIII is ordered to take up defensivepositions on the Egyptian frontier. This left the city exposed to another siege, for which itsdefenses were inadequate, having been allowed to deteriorate during the winter.

The Eighth Army's withdrawal reaches the Egyptian frontier, leaving behind the 2nd SouthAfrican Division to form the basis of a 30,000 strong garrison at Tobruk.

The Germans isolates Tobruk by cutting the coast road at Gambut.

Rommel turns and launches a surprise against Tobruk. This throws the garrison into confusionwhich allows German troops to breach the outer defenses. The fortress falls in one day withthe capture of 32,000 prisoners and tons of fuel and food

German advanced elements reach the Egyptian border. Rommel signals Kesselring forpermission to continue the advance in to Egypt, pointing out that at Tobruk his forces hascaptured large quantities of fuel and supplies.

Rommel is made a Field Marshal and launches attacks against Mersa Matruh. Meanwhile,Kesselring, Cavallero (Italian Chief of Staff in Rome) and Bastico (Italian C-in-C in Libya) arriveat Rommel's HQ and give permission for him to continue his advance in to Egypt. MersaMatruh falls after heavy fighting

Rommel spearheads reaches El Alamein.

July:Rommel captures 2,000 prisoners from the El Alamein 'box' but loses 18 of his 55 remainingtanks.

The British hold El Alamein despite heavy attacks, Rommel is now down to 26 tanks.

Due to exhaustion and lack of supplies, especially fuel for the armoured divisions, Rommelorders his German and Italian forces to suspend all offensive operations before El Alamein andbegin constructing defensive positions.

August:Montgomery takes command of Eighth Army.

The Afrika Korps fails to break through the British 8th Army's lines and advance towardAlexandria, 120km away in the battle of Alam Halfa. The German lose about 30 tanks and areforced to withdraw

September:Rommel is back to the positions held on the 31st August, having lost a tenth of his panzerforce.

Field Marshal Rommel takes a medical leave and hands over command to General vonThoma.

October:Montgomery issues the final plan to senior commanders for the Second battle of El Alamein.

The Second Battle of El Alamein begins with a 1,000-gun bombardment. The Eighth Armygains ground on a 6-mile front and repulses Axis counter-attacks.

Rommel returns to take command of the Afrika Korps!

November:Operation 'Supercharge', the breakout at El Alamein gets under way. Rommel has only 32Panzer's left intact

Rejecting out of hand Field Marshal Rommel's proposal to withdraw the Afrika Korps, nowdown to about 40 tanks, to the Fuka line, Hitler orders him to stand and fight.

The Italian 20th Motorised Corps is destroyed. Rommel re-issues his orders for retreat withonly 12 tanks left. 10,724 Axis prisoners are taken by the British, including nine generals.

The British attack Rommel's rearguard, which is now almost 100 miles to west of El Alamein.

Meanwhile, to the west in Morocco and Algeria, Operation 'Torch' begins with Anglo-Americanforces under Lieutenant General Eisenhower landing against minimal Vichy French resistance.On the same day on the Alamein front, Mersa Matruh is re-taken by British and the long runback across the desert begins.

Click here to jump to The Scenarios Section

III. The Scenarios

Scenario Introduction

From a scenario design point of view Alamein ’42 offered its own challenges which weredifferent from most other games of the series. In previous titles such as Sicily, Bulge orKursk, the game usually depicts a single battle, most often with a clear start and end point.As previous noted in the Order-of-Battle Section with the tank upgrades alone, such a singlephase battle wouldn’t work for Alamein. In reviewing the Historical Timeline section above, onecan readily see a clear division of time after the advance to the Gazala Line. But in readingvarious sources it is not so clearly defined when the battle for the Gazala Line ended and thedrive from Tobruk to Alamein.

Therefore, to tell the story in the Desert War for 1942, it was essential to begin with Gazalaand this earlier phase of the battle in 1942. The Equipment upgrade was not a problem at thisearly juncture, but it was decided not try and continue the campaign from Gazala and followthrough to Alamein for two principle reasons. The first reason for this was time. Using the 2hour time period for each turn, attempting to combine the Gazala Campaign to the pursuit toAlamein would cover to long a time period to be playable and be impossible to test.

Secondly, the different style of the close action during the month long struggle around theGazala Line demanded a different recovery factor in the game parameter data to account forthe huge difference with the ability, particularly of the Germans, to recover panzers and pressthem into service in more stationary battles. In early June, German panzer strength improveddramatically in short spaces of time as German recovery teams hauled in and repaired manyAFV’s. These same levels of recovery were not possible in the long drive to Alamein and so asecond parameter data (PDT) file was required. Of course each scenario can only have oneparameter file assigned to it, so this along with the sheer length of a combined campaign wasenough to warrant handling both phases of this battle separately.

As with previous games in the series, scenario files names begin with numbers using theformat mmdd_xx where the xx portion represents the scenario number on that particularday. There is also a couple introductory scenarios 00 and 01 so as to appear first in the listout of chronological order. Some scenario numbers are ended with a lowercase "a" or "s".The scenarios with the "s" are those that have Explicit Supply units available.

When we test these games we play almost exclusively against the AI but a number of thetesters are avid Play-by-Email fans and they could see where certain scenarios could be bestduplicated with a second copy of the scenario optimized specifically for Head-to-Head (HTH)Play. These scenarios are designation with the "a" after the number. Players interested in thechallenge of play against another human can find a great bunch of guys at mainly two clubswhich handle Panzer Campaigns.

First of all "The Panzer Campaigns Club" isn’t a normal or traditional ladder. Rather than tellyou about it myself, I asked Joseph Alberti Jr to give me a few words about his organization.Joe says:

"Panzer Campaigns Club: ( http://www.panzercampaignsclub.com/ )Is a on-line wargaming club

http://www.panzercampaignsclub.com/

dedicated to the HPS Panzer Campaigns and Squad Battles WWII titles. More than a ladderwhere members advance in points by the number of games played and victories won, clubmembers can role play positions within the various Allied and Axis Armies. Club members canadvance from battalion to army level command through active club participation and gaming. Comradeship between members of the same army is encouraged and fostered. The clubsponsors a number of tournament events between the armies, and there is an active trainingcenter and war college where tactics are taught and discussed. By joining the club, one canenjoy playing the games against worthy opponents, discuss WWII tactics and topics on themessage boards, and have real comrades in one of the club armies."

The second club of note is "The Blitz", which hosts a more traditional Ladder style, and tospeak for them I asked Paul Sinatra, the Panzer Campaign Forum Custodian to tell us abouthis club. Pauls says:

"The Blitzkrieg Wargaming Club: ( http://www.theblitz.org ) If you like your wargaminguninterrupted by banners, pop ups, spy ware, or membership fees, than The BlitzkriegWargaming Club is for you. Established in 1999, The Blitz is one of the oldest and most activeclubs supporting on line and PBEM war gaming, and is home to over 3400 active war gamersfrom 80 different nations, over 400 of which are involved in playing HPS Simulations PanzerCampaigns and Modern Campaigns series of games. The Panzer Campaigns/ModernCampaigns community is particularly active, and the forums are visited on a daily basis bymany of the fine developers, scenario designers, and play testers who produce these fine HPSproducts, not to mention the Internet's highest caliber PBEM players. In addition, The Blitz alsosupports other fine HPS products such as Squad Battles, and their American Civil War andNapoleonic series of Wargames."

The Blitz without a doubt hosts the most active Panzer Campaigns discussion forum so evenif your not interested in playing another human, do check it out as a great place to visit, askquestions of discuss the games. Another place to be aware of is HPS Tech Support guy RichHamilton operations an Unofficial HPS Forum site

Before moving on to the list of scenarios and designers, I’d like to thank a few people for theirongoing support with the Panzer Campaigns Series.

Mike Avanzini for his Campaigns Maps found in a folder under the Start menu.

Adam Parker for his assistances in preparation of the written and graphical components of theSTARTED.HLP file that introduces every new player to the games.

And finally the most over worked bunch of guys who thankless give up tens if not hundreds ofhours, playing, replaying and then playing again the various scenarios we design until we getthem right. To Bob Hutchison, Ed Williams, Rick Bancroft and Paul Sinatra – Thanks Guys –we couldn’t do it without you.

http://www.theblitz.org

We sure hope you all enjoy Alamein ’42 – we had a lot of fun bring it all together for you.Stop by the HPS Website from time to time to ensure you get the latest update for this orany of the games in the series. Also, drop by my own Unofficial Panzer CampaignsHomepage if your looking for more information on this series of game or if you would like toask me a question by email rather than using one of the above mentioned public forums.

Scenario List

#00_Started.scn Getting Started: "Up in the Blue"

#01_No_Mans_Land.scn 01: No-Man's Land

#0527_01_Gazala.scn 0527_01: The Gazala Gallop Campaign

#0527_02_Bir_Hacheim1.scn 0527_02: Round the Horn

#0527_03_Bir_Hacheim2.scn 0527_03: First Try for the "Dogs Well"

#0531_01_Sidi Muftah.scn 0531_01: The Destruction of the 150th Brigade

#0605_01_Cauldron.scn 0605_01: The Cauldron

#0619_01s_Tobruk_to_Alamein.scn 0619_01s: The Tobruk Stakes and the Race for Alamein

#0619_02s_Tobruk_to_Alamein.scn 0619_02s: Tobruk to Alamein (stronger Allied)

#0619_03s_Tobruk_to_Alamein.scn 0619_03s: Tobruk to Alamein (stronger Axis)

#0619_04s_Tobruk_to_Alamein.scn 0619_04s: Tobruk to Alamein (both stronger-unfixed)

#0620_01_Tobruk.scn 0620_01: The Fall of Tobruk

#0622_01_Malta.scn 0622_01: Operation Herkules

#0622_01a_Malta.scn 0622_01a: Operation Herkules (HTH Balanced)

#0626_01s_Matruh_to_Alamein.scn 0626_01s: The Race for Alamein and Beyond

#0626_02s_Matruh_to_Alamein.scn 0626_02s: Matruh to Alamein (stronger Allied)

#0626_03s_Matruh_to_Alamein.scn 0626_03s: Matruh to Alamein (stronger Axis)

#0626_04_Mersa_Matruh.scn 0626_04: Right Hook

#0626_04a_Mersa_Matruh.scn 0626_04a: Right Hook (HTH Balanced)

#0630_01_1st_Alamein.scn 0630_01: The First Battle of Alamein

#0630_02_Alternate_1st_Alamein.scn 0630_02: First Alamein with Axis Airborne Operation

#0701_01_Deir-el-Shein.scn 0701_01: Ice Cold in Alex

#0701_01a_Deir-el-Shein.scn 0701_01a: Ice Cold in Alex (HTH Balanced)

#0703_01_Alam_Nayil.scn 0703_01: The Charge of the Ariete

#0710_01_Tel_el_Eisa.scn 0710_01: Crumble at Tel el Eisa

#0710_01a_Tel_el_Eisa.scn 0710_01a: Crumble at Tel el Eisa (HTH Balanced)

#0721_01_Ruweisat_Ridge.scn 0721_01: Ruweisat Ridge

#0830_01_Alam_Halfa.scn 0830_01: Alam Halfa Ridge - Last Try for the Nile

#1023_01_2nd_Alamein.scn 1023_01: 2nd Alamein - The End of the Beginning

#1023_02_2nd_Alamein_Setup.scn 1023_02: 2nd Alamein - Variable Allied Setup

#1023_03_Lightfoot.scn 1023_03: The Point of Attack

#1023_03a_Lightfoot.scn 1023_03a: The Point of Attack (HTH Balanced)

#1023_04_Bertram.scn 1023_04: Diversion in the South

#1102_01_Supercharge.scn 1102_01: Operation Supercharge

Scenario Overviews

Getting Started: "Up in the Blue"

Up in "The Blue" - west of the Gazala Line, January 17th 1942: After the second Britishvictory in North Africa, Operation "Crusader" around Tobruk in 1941, Panzerarmee Afrika wasforced to retire to the Mersa el Brega position, having given up the Cyrenaica. But thependulum of battle was about to swing once more, and with the fiery breath of a Khamsinwind, Rommel was on the move again determined to take Tobruk. Meanwhile, the British 8thArmy, led by General Ritchie, was thinly strung across the Cyrenaica. Ritchie was preoccupiedwith Axis units trapped in his rear when Rommel struck. What followed was a series of smallscale running gun battles "Up in the Blue" - the soldiers' name for the open desert - as unitsscurried back toward the safety of the Gazala Line. [Size, small] *Designer Note: Thisscenario was created only for Human Axis play vs. an Allied AI Opponent with FOW ON.***SEE STARTED.HLP***

01: No-Man's Land

Libyan Desert, 1940-43: The armored car regiments were very important in the battles of theWestern Desert for a number of reasons. They had a very long range compared to otherunits and were used for independent missions. As soon as Mussolini declared war the threesquadrons of the 11th Hussars were unleashed into "No-man's Land" with the orders "to raisehell, keep the enemy on edge and report what he was up to". Off they went and createdhavoc behind the Italian lines. So much so that a small force of Italian infantry, armor, andguns were sent to try to confront the marauding cars. Unfortunately they were spotted earlyand the 11th called in their buddies from the 4th Armored Brigade to join the party. [Size,small] * Designer Note: This is a "What-If" scenario as far as the units used.

0527_01: The Gazala Gallop Campaign

Gazala, May 27th 1942: After recapturing the Cyrenaica early in the year, Rommel and theAfrika Korps paused to catch its breath. Facing them, across a minefield stretching from theMediterranean Sea to the French stronghold at Bir Hacheim some 65km to the south, was the8th Army led by the ever-tentative British commander, General Ritchie, a staff officer whohad never commanded anything larger than a company in battle. Ritchie deployed his infantryin a number of defensive boxes along a static front line with an open left flank. This position,known as the Gazala Line, was backed with the only mobile formations, the armored divisionsthat represented his reserves. Everyone at 8th Army HQ expected Rommel to drive down themain road along the coast. So Rommel provided a diversion in that direction to keep the Britishcommand occupied while he lead the powerful Panzer divisions, and the best of the Italianmobile formations, around the end of the line into the British rear area. Dawn found the Axisforces "galloping" around the Gazala Line, slicing through the screening armoured car reconunits Ritchie had deployed to cover his open flank. This would be a battle where the British led8th Army was once again out maneuvered. The position Rommel placed the Africa Korps inwas very tenuous for a number of days, however, due to the poorly coordinated Britishcounterattacks, Rommel was able to turn a bad situation into one of the greatest victories inhis career. [Size, large]

0527_02: Round the Horn

SE of Bir Hacheim, May 27th 1942: "The first victim was the 3rd Indian Motor Brigade", asMitcham in his book "Rommel's Greatest Victory," describes events. This unit was spread outover the southern flank, covering the area from Bir Hacheim to Bir el Gubi. Many of the menwere eating breakfast when the Afrika Korps suddenly appeared at dawn. They, and theirsupporting units of armoured cars and artillery, were quickly overrun, while both the 8th Armyand XXX Corps HQ seemed frozen with disbelief at the events that were taking place. Onearmoured brigade had even pre-planned their battle positions on ground of their own choosing,but events overtook them before they had an opportunity to occupy the positions. However,all did not go according to plan for the Afrika Korps either. The plan called for the Italian ArieteDivision to capture Bir Hacheim (Dog's Well) from the 1st Free French Brigade, an opponentthat Rommel and the Italians regarded as a rebel unit made up of Jews andLegionnaires......they were in for a big surprise! [Size, medium]

0527_03: First Try for the "Dogs Well"

SE of Bir Hacheim, May 27th 1942: As the Africa Korps rounded the bend and cut in behindthe British, not everything went according to plan. The Italian Ariete Division was assigned themission to capture Bar Hacheim, (Dog's Well) from the 1st Free French Brigade, an opponentthat Rommel and the Italians regarded as a rebel unit made up of Jews andLegionnaires......they were in for a big surprise! [Size, small]

0531_01: The Destruction of the 150th Brigade

The Encircled 150th Brigade at Sida Muftah, May 31st 1942: By the morning of the May 31st,Brig Gen Hayton, in command of the 150th Brigade of the 50th Infantry Division, knew hewas in grave danger of losing his entire command. He withdrew his southernmost battalioninto the main box defensive position, where, supported by some tanks from the 44th RoyalTank Regt. and some additional artillery assets, he continued to interdict Rommel's supply line.It was "do or die" time for the Afrika Korps with Rommel declaring, "The 150th Brigade mustbe evicted!" Meanwhile, 40 km to the east, 8th Army HQ was slow to respond to the growingcrisis, then it reacted with a number of uncoordinated efforts to breakthrough to thebeleaguered defenders. [Size, medium] *Designers Note: The area marked as impassible, atthe north end of the map is occupied with units that were not available for the action that isthe subject of this scenario.

0605_01: The Cauldron

The Cauldron, June 5th 1942: By early June, both sides were down to less than half of thetanks they had at the start of the battle. During the lull in the fighting, Rommel hastilyrecovered more battle-damaged tanks for his next move. But before he could act, GenRitchie at 8th Army ordered up Operation Aberdeen, the goal of which was to annihilate theAfrica Korps in the Cauldron. [Size, medium]

0619_01s: The "Tobruk Stakes" and the Race for Alamein

Near Tobruk, June 19th 1942: After winning "The Gazala Gallop" Rommel was faced with asituation very much like the one he was in at this time in the previous year. The 8th Armywas in retreat to the Egyptian frontier leaving a sizable force garrisoning Tobruk. Rommelknew he could not sustain a deep drive toward Cairo and the Nile without first securing his lines

of communication. This meant capturing Tobruk, a prize that eluded him in 1941, and usingthe port as a basis for supplying a drive to the east. So with 8th Army in retreat and hisweary panzers hot on their heels, Rommel disengaged his army, turned and attacked Tobrukin a run one author called the "Tobruk Stakes". The fortress fell in a single day's fight in whatwas a staggering blow to British prestige. With his rear secured, Rommel was free toconcentrate his army on the ultimate objective of the campaign - Alexandria, Cairo, and theNile. But his army was badly depleted from the previous month's fighting. Many of thepanzers were broken down or disabled across the wide expanse of the desert battlefield. Hismen had already gone about as far as any commander could have expected. Yet Rommelstill had another race to run - the Race to Alamein and beyond! [Size, large]. *Designer Note:Explicit Supply is possible and if used the Axis player will get more supplies if he capturesTobruk. Selecting the option to invade Malta will result in an additional bonus supply convoylanded in Tobruk, but the Axis player requires Tobruk captured to receive it. Using VST Supplythere is a Supply bonus for the Axis for capturing Tobruk.

0619_02s: Tobruk to Alamein (stronger Allied)

Near Tobruk, June 19th 1942: This scenario is the same as 0619_01s with the addition of twoAllied divisions. First, the 4th Indian Division was in North Africa and too part in campaigns in1940-41. During this 1st Battle of Alamein this veteran division was dug-in on the Nile. Thesecond division was the British 44th Infantry. This unit was on route to North Africa andarrived after the 1st Battle of Alamein and was deemed to be in need of training after it hadarrived. Both units are deployed in a FIXED state with possible release and are intended as alast hope defense of Alexandra and the Nile, particularly for Axis Human Play against the AlliedAI. [Size, large]. *Designer Note: Explicit Supply is possible and the supply conditions from0619_01s are in effect here but there is no additional Explicit supply for the additional units.

0619_03s: Tobruk to Alamein (stronger Axis)

Near Tobruk, June 19th 1942: This scenario is the same as 0619_01s with the addition ofextra Axis units, including the German 164th Light Infantry Division, the Ramcke ParachuteBrigade as well as the crack Italian Folgore Division. These units historically arrived by air in themiddle of July and given the desperate state of both sides at that time, it is interesting tospeculate about the effect these units could have played. [Size, large]. *Designer Note:Explicit Supply is possible and the Axis player receives the bonus supplies at Tobruk,regardless if he invades Malta. Also note, the Folgore Division is only available in North Africa ifit is not used to Invade Malta. If Malta is invaded, the Bologna will arrive early.

0619_04s: Tobruk to Alamein (both sides reinforced - unfixed)

Near Tobruk, June 19th 1942: This scenario is the same as 0619_01s with the addition ofextra Axis units for both sides from 0619_02s and 0619_03s. These include the German164th Light Infantry Division, the Ramcke Parachute Brigade as well as the crack ItalianFolgore Division. There are additional Allied Divisions two. Furthermore, most later releasingAllied units are Unfixed at start allowing for more flexible play. However, Axis units at the startof the scenario remain Fixed to encourage a historical development of the beginning of thisbattle. [Size, large]. *Designer Note: Explicit Supply is possible and the Axis player receivesthe bonus supplies at Tobruk, regardless if he invades Malta. Also note, the Folgore Division isonly available in North Africa if it is not used to Invade Malta. If Malta is invaded, the Bolognawill arrive early.

0620_01: The Fall of Tobruk

Tobruk, June 20th 1942: By the June 14th June, Gen Ritchie had accepted the fact that thebattle for the Gazala Line had been lost, and ordered the units remaining on the front line tobreak off action and withdraw. The Axis closed in at once and surrounded Tobruk by the June18th. The Australians had held out through a long siege the previous year, so the upperechelon expected the same result once more. The Tobruk Garrison was roughly the samesize as before and was organized around the 2nd South African Division, but the fortificationswere not near as strong. Many of the mines had been pulled to be re-sewn on the GazalaLine, also many minefields were simply lost track of through the changing of the garrison. Asbefore, Rommel bypassed Tobruk and drove the 8th Army back across the border intoEgypt. But on the night of the June 19th, Rommel disengaged his tanks at the front line anddoubled back to strike at Tobruk. When the attack began, General Klopper thought the firststrike was a diversionary attack and, thus, he was slow to react with his reserves. Before hecould, it was too late. The front line was broken in a sector held by the 11th Indian Brigade'sCameron Highlanders, and Mahratta Light Infantry, arguably two of the best regiments in the8th Army, that were, as it turns out, stretched over too much frontage. The fortress ofTobruk, having withstood the siege for months the previous year, fell in a single day's fight. Itwas a staggering blow to Britain and in particular their leader Winston Churchill, who was saidto have muttered, "Defeat is one thing, disgrace is another!" [Size, medium]

0622_01: Operation "Herkules"

Malta, June 21st 1942: This quote, from Italian Count Ciano, sums up the situation of 1stPanzerarmee in North Africa, "Because of the revival of Malta as an air base and thenumerous sinkings in the Mediterranean, supplies for the First Panzerarmee have fallen farbelow normal requirements. Unless Malta is weakened or paralyzed once more, this situationcannot be remedied." The plans to take Malta had long been on the drawing board, indeed,some Axis strategists deemed it essential to crush this island for the war in the desert tosucceed. [Size, medium]

0622_01a: Operation Herkules

Malta, June 21st 1942: This quote, from Italian Count Ciano, sums up the situation of 1stPanzerarmee in North Africa, "Because of the revival of Malta as an air base and thenumerous sinkings in the Mediterranean, supplies for the First Panzerarmee have fallen farbelow normal requirements. Unless Malta is weakened or paralyzed once more, this situationcannot be remedied." The plans to take Malta had long been on the drawing board, indeed,some Axis strategists deemed it essential to crush this island for the war in the desert tosucceed. [Size, medium] *Designer Note: Victory Levels optimized for Human vs. Humanplay.

0626_01s: The Race for Alamein and Beyond

Mersa Matruh, June 26th 1942: With victories in "The Gazala Gallop" and "The TobrukStakes" under his belt, final victory in the desert had still eluded Rommel. With his batteredPanzer Army he still faced an 8th Army that was battered, but not yet beaten. Ritchie hadbeen removed from command and leadership fell to the Commander-in-Chief of the Middle

East, General Sir Claude Auchinleck. The Army had been positioned for a stand at MersaMatruh, but the new commander could see that it was best to surrender ground and make astand at Alamein. Here the defense could be positioned at a narrow neck between theMediterranean Sea and anchored inland at the Qattara Depression. While the 8th Army wasdemoralized and disorganized, the Afrika Korps too was almost at the end of its tether. Thislast push by Rommel was a gamble to reach the Nile, before his supplies, his panzers, andmen ran out! [Size, large]. *Designer Note: Explicit Supply is possible.

0626_02s: Matruh to Alamein (stronger Allied)

Mersa Matruh, June 26th 1942: This scenario is the same as 0626_01s with the addition oftwo Allied divisions. First, the 4th Indian Division was in North Africa and too part in campaignsin 1940-41. During this 1st Battle of Alamein this veteran division was dug-in on the Nile. Thesecond division was the British 44th Infantry. This unit was on route to North Africa andarrived after the 1st Battle of Alamein and was deemed to be in need of training after it hadarrived. Both units are deployed in a FIXED state with possible release and are intended as alast hope defense of Alexandra and the Nile, particularly for Axis Human Play against the AlliedAI. [Size, large]. *Designer Note: Explicit Supply is possible but there is no additional Explicitsupply for the additional units.

0626_03s: Matruh to Alamein (stronger Axis)

Mersa Matruh, June 26th 1942: This scenario is the same as 0626_01s with the addition ofextra Axis units, including the German 164th Light Infantry Division, the Ramcke ParachuteBrigade as well as the crack Italian Folgore Division. These units historically arrived by air in themiddle of July and given the desperate state of both sides at that time, it is interesting tospeculate about the effect these units could have played. [Size, large]. Designer Note: ExplicitSupply is possible and the Axis player receives the bonus supplies at Tobruk just like he wouldhad he invaded Malta in the 0619_01 scenario.

0626_04: Right Hook

Mersa Matruh, June 26th 1942: Rommel was chasing the 8th Army across the desert sandshe had retreated over a few months previously. Tobruk had fallen easily, after the frustrationof the year before and the Allied commanders just couldn't put it all together, the chase wason. Gen. Ritchie had decided to make a stand at Mersa Matruh in order that the groundaround El Alamein could be readied for defense. In reality, Rommel was almost at the end ofhis tether, he was using all the supplies he could capture, and his daunted Afrika Korps wasgetting to be quite thin on the ground. This was a desperate gamble to push the disorganized8th Army in front of him, all the way to Alexandria, before his supplies... and men... ran out.[Size, large]

#0626_04a: Right Hook (HTH Balanced)

Mersa Matruh, June 26th 1942: Rommel was chasing the 8th Army across the desert sandshe had retreated over a few months previously. Tobruk had fallen easily, after the frustrationof the year before and the Allied commanders just couldn't put it all together, the chase wason. Gen. Ritchie had decided to make a stand at Mersa Matruh in order that the groundaround El Alamein could be readied for defense. In reality, Rommel was almost at the end of

his tether, he was using all the supplies he could capture, and his daunted Afrika Korps wasgetting to be quite thin on the ground. This was a desperate gamble to push the disorganized8th Army in front of him, all the way to Alexandria, before his supplies... and men... ran out.[Size, large] *Designer Note: Victory Levels optimized for Human vs. Human play.

0630_01: The First Battle of Alamein

Alamein Station, July 1st 1942: Rommel believed he had the 8th Army on the run and that hecould easily break through the opposition and continue in triumph all the way to Alexandria andCairo. He drew up plans to send the DAK on an end run to the south, as at Gazala and MersaMatruh. He knew his weary troops could not withstand a protracted battle and, with only 55panzers left, he wanted a swift end to hostilities. Here though, things did not go right from thestart, the enemy were not where expected, the Desert Air Force threw wave after wave ofaircraft at the DAK, and his men were getting more and more exhausted. [Size, medium]*Designer Note: Scenario best for Human vs. Human but certainly possible for Human vs. AIPlay too.

0630_02: First Alamein with Axis Airborne Operations

Alamein Station, July 1st 1942 This scenario is the same as 0630_01 with the addition of extraunits, including the Ramcke Parachute Brigade as well as the crack Italian Folgore Division.These units historically arrived by air at the start of the game. The Allied Player may receiveadditional forces as well [Size, medium]. *Designer Note: Scenario best for Human vs. Humanbut certainly possible for Human vs. AI Play too.

0701_01: Ice Cold in Alex

Alamein Station, July 1st 1942: Rommel believed he had the 8th Army on the run and that hecould break easily through the opposition and continue in triumph all the way to Alexandria andCairo. He drew up plans to send the DAK on an end run to the south, as at Gazala and MersaMatruh. He knew his weary troops could not withstand a protracted battle and with only 55panzers left he wanted a swift end to hostilities. Here, though, things did not go right from thestart, the enemy were not where expected, the Desert Air Force threw wave after wave ofaircraft at the DAK, and his men were getting more and more exhausted. [Size, medium]

0701_01a: Ice Cold in Alex (HTH Balanced)

Alamein Station, July 1st 1942: Rommel believed he had the 8th Army on the run and that hecould break easily through the opposition and continue in triumph all the way to Alexandria andCairo. He drew up plans to send the DAK on an end run to the south, as at Gazala and MersaMatruh. He knew his weary troops could not withstand a protracted battle and with only 55panzers left he wanted a swift end to hostilities. Here, though, things did not go right from thestart, the enemy were not where expected, the Desert Air Force threw wave after wave ofaircraft at the DAK, and his men were getting more and more exhausted. [Size, medium]*Designer Note: Victory Levels optimized for Human vs. Human play.

0703_01: The Charge of the Ariete

South of the Ruweisat Ridge, July 3rd 1942: The Afrika Korps' chances of snatching a victoryat the First Battle of Alamein were rapidly dwindling. Although the 8th Army was fighting asindividual units, the Axis forces were thoroughly exhausted with their supplies andreinforcements lying hundreds of miles to their rear. Rommel was roaming far and wide tryingto get his troops to give their all in one last, final push, but with the DAK down to a tenth of itsstrength, it was not to be. The Italian part, on this last day, was the Ariete Division toadvance to the south of the Ruweisat Ridge aiming at the Alam Nayil ridge. Little did theyknow that this would take them right into part of the well rested, although a little belowstrength, 2nd New Zealand Division. [Size, small]

0710_01: Crumble at Tel el Eisa

Tel el Eisa, July 10th 1942: As the German attack petered out, 8th Army adopted a plan to'thrust and parry' along the front in order to tire and wear out Rommel's remaining the panzerreserves. Fighting had lapsed into a virtual stalemate with the Allies holding the upper hand,but with no impetuous, or energy, to carry on the assault any longer. By the 10th, three dayshad passed without Auchinleck being able to muster any sort of offense. The lull was brokenwith the arrival of the 9th Australian Division. Fresh from reserves, this formation launched amajor offensive on the Coastal Road which shattered the Sabratha Division, leaving the roadheld only by HQ Panzeraramee Afrika to hold the line. HQ troops and AA guns were deployedacross the road and they successfully held the initial attack, but in the process lost a numberof irreplaceable Wireless Intercept specialists. 15th Panzer responded with vastly reducedstrength from the south, but the day was saved with the arrival of the 382nd Regiment, thelead unit of the 164th Division, the first reinforcement dispatched to Africa in months. This'Crumble at El el Eisa' signaled a change in fortune for the Afrika Korps. [Size, small]

0710_01a: Crumble at Tel el Eisa (HTH Balanced)

Tel el Eisa, July 10th 1942: As the German attack petered out, 8th Army adopted a plan to'thrust and parry' along the front in order to tire and wear out Rommel's remaining the panzerreserves. Fighting had lapsed into a virtual stalemate with the Allies holding the upper hand,but with no impetuous, or energy, to carry on the assault any longer. By the 10th, three dayshad passed without Auchinleck being able to muster any sort of offense. The lull was brokenwith the arrival of the 9th Australian Division. Fresh from reserves, this formation launched amajor offensive on the Coastal Road which shattered the Sabratha Division, leaving the roadheld only by HQ Panzeraramee Afrika to hold the line. HQ troops and AA guns were deployedacross the road and they successfully held the initial attack, but in the process lost a numberof irreplaceable Wireless Intercept specialists. 15th Panzer responded with vastly reducedstrength from the south, but the day was saved with the arrival of the 382nd Regiment, thelead unit of the 164th Division, the first reinforcement dispatched to Africa in months. This'Crumble at El el Eisa' signaled a change in fortune for the Afrika Korps. [Size, small] *DesignerNote: Victory Levels optimized for Human vs. Human play.

0721_01: Ruweisat Ridge

Ruweisat Ridge, near El Alamein, July 21st 1942: The 8th Army had been whittling away atthe remaining Axis forces for some weeks. Any chance to bleed some strength from theAfrika Korps was taken. So it was, on the night of July 21st that the 161st Indian Bde, andthe 6th New Zealand Bde, attacked to the west along the ridge towards El Mreir. The attackwent well and by early morning the New Zealanders were firmly in possession of the El Mreir

depression, well inside the Axis lines. However, to hold against the expected counter attack,both 15th and 21st Panzer were in the area, armor was needed. The job fell to the newlyarrived and inexperienced 23rd Armored Bde, who charged onto the waiting Axis anti tankscreen, losing valuable tanks in the process. [Size, medium] *Designer Note: This scenariohas some non-standard (unusual) reinforcements in order to simulate the arrival of both 23rdArm'd Bde and the anti-tank screen.

0830_01: Alam Halfa Ridge - Last Try for the Nile

El Alamein position, August 30th 1942: Rommel was frustrated by his lack of supplies,receiving only a fifth of the requirement. It would have made sense to withdraw to Fuka toshorten the supply line, but Hitler would not let any of his commanders give up any ground forany reason. On the other hand, he had received some replacements and the two sides wereat the most balanced they would ever be in the Desert War. The longer he waited, the moresolid the Allies line at El Alamein became, so for Rommel the only alternative was to attackwhile he still had the strength left to make the attack. Montgomery had used time well toprepare his new command for defense, and this time the Allies would be waiting for the "righthook". [Size, medium]

1023_01: 2nd Alamein - The End of the Beginning

El Alamein, October 23rd 1942: Two years had passed in the struggle for control of theWestern Desert. Each side had won, and each side had lost, neither side had managed toinflict a decisive defeat on the other. The two sides had frequently been compared to twoboxers, each tied by the elastic rope of their supply line, as one moved further from thesupply source, the stronger the pull his rope exerted to get him back to his corner. Thebalance had now passed back to the 8th Army, close to its supply and getting stronger eachday, while the Afrika Korps was at the end of its rope and getting weaker. Montgomery hadplanned a deliberate bleeding of Rommel's daunted troops, attacking here and there to causethem to react and burn precious fuel in constant movement. The time was now ripe to finishthe Afrika Korps once and for all. Monty's plan was for XIII Corps to mount holding attacks,while XXX Corps delivered the main blow in the north. Two corridors were to be secured sothat the armor of X Corps could move through the extensive minefields and destroy the Axisarmor. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill called the Allied victory at Alamein "The End ofthe Beginning!" [Size, large]

1023_02: 2nd Alamein - Variable Allied Setup

El Alamein, October 23rd 1942: The Second Battle of Alamein was Monty's Battle - his effortto select the battle ground and destroy the Africa Korps once and for all where it stood. Partof this plan was to confuse the Germans as to where the main effort was to be using a seriesof diversionary strikes. In this variation of the Second Alamein battle, the Allied player can pickfrom one of four different battle plans in an effort to keep the German player guessing as towhere the main attack will fall. This scenario features historical forces, but variable Allied Setup,using the Strategy|Operations feature, so that the 8th Army player can pick from the optionsfor a variable setup of the attack force. Axis forces begin the game Unfixed and thus theycan respond at will to Allied probes and attacks. [Size, large] *Designer Note: Even though thenumber of hexes with troops vary within each possible Operation, all the Allied Setups containexactly the same force. Furthermore, the entire Axis line is equally fortified so it is up to theAllies to outwit the German with probes and main attacks. Please note, that while the AI can

play the Allied side in this scenario, there are no scripted AI Orders for the Allies because youcan't specify a objective for a division when the setup position for that division can vary aswidely as can be the case here. Special thanks to Rick Bancroft for assistance with the AlliedS|O Setups.

1023_03: The Point of Attack

El Alamein, October 23rd 1942: The start of the Allied attack on at El Alamein wascode-named "Operation Lightfoot". This main event was to last just one night, or so Montythought. The infantry went in first, it was known that many of the anti-tank mines would notbe tripped - hence the code-name "Lightfoot". Behind the infantry, engineers had to clear apath for the tanks coming up in the rear, but first they had to clear sufficient gaps throughtheir own mines to allow for safe passage of troops, as well as supplies, before movingforward to clear the German mines. It was an awesome task and one that essentially failed.The attack on the Axis lines started with a great artillery barrage and, legend has it, that thenoise was so great that the ears of the gunners bled. This scenario depicts XXX Corps' part inthe battle to secure the corridors in the main area of the attack. [Size, medium] *DesignersNote: Additional "Bunker" hexes added to provide the Allied Human Player more challengewhen facing the AI Axis Opponent.

1023_03a: The Point of Attack (HTH Balanced)

El Alamein, October 23rd 1942: The start of the Allied attack on at El Alamein wascode-named "Operation Lightfoot". This main event was to last just one night, or so Montythought. The infantry went in first, it was known that many of the anti-tank mines would notbe tripped, hence the code-name "Lightfoot". Behind the infantry, engineers had to clear apath for the tanks coming up in the rear, but first they had to clear sufficient gaps throughtheir own mines to allow for safe passage of troops, as well as supplies, before movingforward to clear the German mines. It was an awesome task and one that essentially failed.The attack on the Axis lines started with a great artillery barrage and, legend has it, that thenoise was so great that the ears of the gunners bled. This scenario depicts XXX Corps' part inthe battle to secure the corridors in the main area of the attack. [Size, medium] *DesignersNote: Victory Levels optimized for Human vs. Human play.

1023_04: Diversion in the South

Southern sector, El Alamein, October 23rd 1942: To throw the Germans off the scent,Montgomery launched 'Operation Bertram'. This plan was to convince the Afrika Korps thatthe full might of the Eighth Army would be used in the south. Dummy tanks were erected inthe region. A dummy pipeline was also built, slowly, so as to convey that the Allies were in nohurry to attack. Monty's army in the north also had to "disappear". Bertram worked and whenRommel, who was away sick when the battle began, returned to command the army, he wasconvinced that the attack would be in the south. But to hold the Axis reserves in place in thesouth, a strong push had to be made, or the deception would be quickly disregarded. [Size,medium]

1102_01: Operation Supercharge

El Alamein, November 2nd 1942: Montgomery was keeping to his schedule. He now planned

what he was hoping to be the death stroke of Rommel's army. Operation Supercharge wouldbe delivered north of Kidney Ridge in three phases. Phase 1, breaking into the enemy'sforward defenses on a two brigade frontage, east of the Rahman Track. Phase 2, destroyingthe AT gun screen and breaking through the main position on the Aqqaqir Ridge, west of theRahman Track. Phase 3, bringing to battle and destroying the armor, then breaking out intothe open desert. Montgomery left his subordinates in no doubt about the losses to beexpected, he was prepared to accept 100 per cent in the opening phases to get out into thedesert. [Size, medium]

Click here to jump to The Bibliography Section

IV. Bibliography

Books:

Bierman, John, and Smith, Colin, The Battle of Alamein: Turning Point, World War II, (2002)

Bungay, Stephen, Alamein, (2002)

Ceva, Lucio, Storia delle Forze Armate in Italia" (1999)

Information translated by Panzer Campaign fan, Franco Agostina

Churchill, Sir Winston, The Hinge of Fate, (1950)

Clayton, Tim and Craig, Phil, End of the Beginning, (2002)

Delaney, John, Fighting the Desert Fox, (1998)

Foss, Christopher, The Encyclopedia of Tanks and Armoured Fighting Vehicles, Amber Books,(2002)

Gabriele, M., Operation C3: Malta, (1965)

Interpretation by Jason Petho

Hamilton, Scott S, and Smith, Gregory M., HPS Simulations Encyclopedia of Land Combat(1997)

Hogg, Ian V., The Greenhill Armoured Fighting Vehicles Data Book. (2000)

Latimer, Jon, Alamein, (2002)

Lucas, James, War in the Desert: The Eight Army at El Alamein (1982)

Macksey, Maj. K.J., Africa Korps: Rommels Desert Soldiers (1968)

Madej, Victor, Italian Army Order of Battle 1939-1943, (1981)

Mitcham, Samuel, Rommel's Greatest Victory: the Desert Fox and the Fall of Tobruk, Spring1942 (1999)

Nafziger, George F. German Order of Battle: Panzers and Artillery in WWII. (1995)

Nafziger, George F. German Order of Battle: Waffen SS and other Units in WWII. (2001)

Perrett, Bryan, Iron Fist: Classic Armoured Warfare, (1995)

Petho, Jason, A Battle Atlas: Operazione C3. (unpublished - coming in 2004-05)

Pitt, Barrie; The Crucible of War, Western Desert 1941, (1980)

Strawson, John, The Battle for North Africa, (1969)

Games:

Avalon Hill, Air Assault on Crete,

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