Bucha, Ukraine - 27 Feb 2022 - 15mm

Here are some quick photos and an abridged battle report from the recent Arab-Israeli Wars game between myself and Damon.  Again, this was played via web conference so we could have real-time video, chat, shared desktop (so each player could move their own playing pieces) and even a “Twitch style” spectator, all in real time … actually more than Twitch because @brucelea could advise @damon and the people playing the game could actually hear and reply. 😀

Anyway, we’ve already gone over the background and details of the 1956 Sinai War in October and November 1956.  So the gist of this game is the the Israelis are invading westwards across the Sinai, driving toward the Suez Canal.  The Egyptians are trying to delay them, while maintaining some kind of a cohesive force in withdrawal toward the canal (where French paratroopers and British Royal Marines are already on the ground as part of Operation Musketeer, but that’s getting off on a tangent).

So Damon has the leading elements of Ben Uri’s 7th Israeli Armored Brigade, made up of Shermans, M50 “Super” Shermans (although of course they weren’t really called that), while my Egyptians are built around the remnants of 1st Armored Brigade.

I enter the west side of the map first.  My mission is to damage and delay.  I get one point for any Israeli unit that doesn’t make it off the west edge of the board (i.e., doesn’t get past me), and 3 points for Israeli unit destroyed.  My force is T-34/85 tanks and SU-100 tank destroyers.

Damon enters the west edge of the map.  He gets 2 points for any Egyptian units destroyed, and 1 point for any Israeli unit that makes it off the west edge of the map.

The map shows the situation at the end of Turn 1.  The Israelis have 60 tanks, the Egyptians have 75 tanks and tank destroyers.  Each hex is 250 meters across.  The overall map covers just under 50 square kilometers – 8 kilometers across and 6 kilometers tall.

The game lasts eight turns.

As always, for best results select the image, then open in new tab.

So in this game we decided to experiment with some facing rules for AFV platoons.  The top of the unit’s counter designates the unit’s facing.  When the counter top is facing toward a hex side, the unit is in road / march / column formation, and presents and very narrow front facing and extended, exposed flanks, but gets double movement of roads.  When the unit is placed in the hex so that it’s top faces a hex point, the unit is in some kind of tactical dispersion / combat formation, and the flanks of the platoon are much less exposed but still vulnerable from certain angles (frontal arcs described by the hex grid)

The Israelis are on the board and making their approach, making a generally southerly push westward across the board.  As the forces close to within five kilometers, I’m sidestepping with my Egyptians south, using my center and right wing to block / delay the Israeli advance while slinging out my left wing to envelop and threaten the Israeli north flank.

Contact!  And delaying battle as long as I could (Israeli guns are much stronger than mine, and even worse, much longer-ranged).  I finally pounced with the biggest overrun attack I could muster.  Typically in this scenario (Bir Gifgafa, 2 November 1956), the Egyptians get one real crack at the Israelis as they make their run across the table.  It’s not the best (I’ve over extended my left wing a little), and Israeli opportunity fire mauls my hapless T-34/85s as they rush in, but by 15 SU-100 tank destroyers go in against those AMX-13s, and leave three platoons of them as smoldering wrecks as well.

Any time the Egyptians can trade the Israelis in tanks on a 1-1 basis … it’s a good day for the Egyptians.

Meanwhile, I have three other companies of T-34/85s (6 counters = 30 tanks) behind the Israelis at this point, made up primarily of M4/M1 and M50 Shermans.  They’re too far away to really score any hits, can’t draw an LOS over those dunes, and in any event are too far east to coordinate gunfire attacks with my other units.

But these 30 T-34/85s are hopefully pushing the Israelis forward (well, that and the turn limit), driving them westward into the guns of my SU-100s.  Hounds to the hunters, and all that.  Alternatively, Damon can turn around and annihilate my 30 T-34/85s, probably with little effort.  It would sure feel good, and admittedly score some Israeli victory points, but would also cost the Israelis at least a full turn, possibly two.  Again, this could lose the game for the Israelis.  Either way, I’m hoping to scrape out at least a draw here.