Had a nice talk with Tim last night about our recent Wavell’s War game and, especially, his posted comments.

I had some real second thoughts about the validity of using scrapped unit replacement points to build new headquarters.  Big sigh of relief when I checked the rules this morning and confirmed it is OK.

We also talked about the low level of victory point (VIP) totals in the game, especially since they are calculated, for the most part, in January and July, only.  This makes the status of Massua absolutely critical.  This city is worth three VIPs per initial phase on or after April I/II ’41 for the side that controls the city.

With this in mind,  Tim’s analyses of his attack supply and railroad construction challenges are very pertinent to successful Allied play.

I think we agreed to try it again.  The when is TBD.

Back from Spring Training.  Tim forwarded his observations while I was in Arizona.  Here they are:

I like your idea of using your RPs from scrapping units to buy back HQs. Clever!

Having no SMPs in the Sudan really hurts the British. Once I moved forward from my railheads, I couldn’t use my attack supply. My logistics problems were of distributing attack supply, rather than the Italian problem of not having any. It didn’t help that I didn’t know that I only had to build two hexes of rail line. It wasn’t until I read the appendix on transportation lines that I found out that the rest of that rail road connecting the Sudan and Eritrea had been built. Being able to rail supply into Eritrea would have really helped the British.

I was pleased with my use of the motorized SDF battalions. Those guys saved my butt more than once!

I didn’t read the OB as closely as I normally do, which hurt me. I missed the Blen 1 unit in Aden and could have built a light armored battalion several turns sooner than I actually did. I’m embarrassed as I normally carefully read the OBs, which always pays off.

I think I dispersed my forces too much. In retrospect I probably should have used both divisions together in the Sudan and moved some non divisional units down the coast (in my defense, I didn’t realize how bad those ravine hexsides were– they really help the defense). The same applies in the south where I should have stacked some colonial units with the South Africans since I had lots of colonial RPs.

I wonder if I should have taken festung Berbera and then moved into the interior…

That exchange on the South Africans really hurt! That attack came to a halt until I could bring up another division from the coast, which cost me at least a month when I really couldn’t afford it. I had a couple of other exchanges and they all hurt, especially once I had to start withdrawing units.

I didn’t use my amphibious landing ability. I wonder if I should have tried taking some of the ports from the sea or landed next to Massawa…

The weather was a real headache. In most games its pretty predictable but in this one, it wasn’t.

There are a lot of Italian ants. I’m sure from the Italian point of view, it feels like you’re getting wiped out but from the British point of view, it felt like the ants were getting ready to overwhelm the anteaters. Once the Italians can concentrate their units it gets harder to destroy them.

This weekend’s game was an adventure; with unfamiliar rules and daunting operational constraints, not to mention the sheer size of the area of operations.  This will be a quick overview.  Hopefully Tim will post up.  I’ll add some additional observations once I get back into town.

Tim was stalled in the always unpredictable Friday Portland traffic and didn’t arrive until after 1800. We decided to spend the evening familiarizing ourselves with the East Africa specific/pertinent rules (we also decided to forgo all the optional rules as this was our first time through the game) and watching the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. That was an adventure, too.

While we have been playing Europa for way too long, this game was something different, particularly the use of attack supply, and for the Italians, the need to convert limited attack supply resources to general supply. Without general supply, the Italians, who do not have any general supply sources (only limited ones), had their attack strengths quartered, movement halved, defense halved, and lost all armored effects. Their limited aircraft assets were subject to similar constraints when out of supply. In fact, each mission was a crap shoot. With bad rolls on the success table, the mission never occurred, or worse, the aircraft went into the aborted box. And with only one ARP, that meant it was gone. To make things even better, any use of SMPs reduced the remaining pool of SMPs, with Italian capabilities becoming even more pathetic as the game wore on.

However, the Italians weren’t the only ones handicapped by logistics. Even though the British are in general supply, they have limited attack supply resources and have to move them across East Africa before they can come to grip with the Italians. While the British can assemble divisions, their use is limited as they are withdrawn from use relatively early in the game.

As you can see from the previous post, the area of operations is huge. The impact of size is compounded by the low movement rates of most units. There are very few mechanized units, and those that are in the OB have little combat power. Truck assets are worth their weight in gold. Not only can they increase an infantry’s units movements, but can also take advantage of exploitation movement. Once again, the combat power of a transportable unit (1 RE) is minimal, especially when halved if out of attack supply.

Rail capacity is low, and the amount of trackage limited. Tim will probably expand on this, but neither of us did a very good job of working with what we had.

To make even more fun, there are about 8 weather zones, and any and all of them can go from clear to grind-to-a-halt mud in a single turn.

Given all of these factors, events unfolded slowly.

Play began early Saturday. Tim had the Allies. He used three axis’ of advance. The first was down the Red Sea Coast from Sudan towards the port of Massaua (all spellings are from the maps), the second from Kenya to the southeast to secure the ports of Mogadiscio and Chismaio, with the third northeast from Kenya towards Addis Abbada. The first was aimed at gaining victory points before April II, while the second aimed at denying the Italians victory points as well as possible supplies. The third was to liberate the Ethiopian capital.

Tim made good progress on his first two axes of advance.  Chismaio and Mogadiscio fell early, the Italians unable to muster more than a token defense, not helped by my unwillingness to convert a factor of  attack supply into general supply.  While the attack towards Massaua took more time to develop because Tim took the time to form divisions, by mid-game he was able to exploit a blunder on my part and take the city without loss.  At this point, however, a combination of bad weather and sacrificial use of Italian regiments slowed the British.

The next day, Tim continued his attacks, but suffered an Exchange setback outside of Addis Abada.  This, along with the need to remove some of his more powerful units for  redeployment elsewhere in the Middle East, slowed his momentum and allowed me to cobble together a defensive cordon to stop his new advances towards Addis Abada from the north.

Although taking breaks to watch the tournament, our game focus was so great, we missed one the classic NCAA tournament meltdowns of all time.

By the May II turn, we decided to devote ourselves to beer drinking and game viewing.  Here’s a few photos to illustrate the course of the game.  I’ll post up some other observations later.

Set it up last night and this morning.  Used stencil tape to keep the small map sheets from shifting around.  Had to shim the utility table to get it to match up (kind of) with the dining room table.

Big map, lots of ants.  Italians have limited supply sources, which severely effects both offensive and defensive capabilities,  and very few steps of attack supply to compensate.  Air support for colonial units is also limited.

This will be very interesting.