"Sand! Sand! Nothing but Sand?" Topic

This is primarily a Chain of Command question but I guess it could just as well be a Bolt Action one as well.

My wargame buddy determinedly knocked up British and Italian forces for North Africa. We have played NW Europe and more recently Russian Front for years but he wanted a change of scenery and that's where the problems started.

Basically, given the level of CoC/Bolt Action how do you get a decent game that does not continually involve a Wadi, an Oasis, or Village/Random buildings.

With out it turning into WW1 and having one side or the other advancing across completely open terrain into a hail of bullets?

Trying to be a mate here and not resort to "Look I did warn you!"

Any ideas?

That's one reason I don't do modern skirmish in the desert myself, but I would add hills, mountains and fortified positions to the terrain types, and I would use smoke and artillery prep to obscure the completely open terrain.

That said, remember that in Tunisia you can get trees AND desert uniforms.

You could look at a system that generates random dunes and defiles that obstruct LOS and hinder movement. Perhaps a random vehicle breakdown (did the heat and sand cause more vehicles to crap out?) I don't have any interest in gaming North Africa, but some people love it. Hopefully, a fan of the desert campaign will come along and give you some good tactical ideas to implement. To piggyback off Robert, I bet a ton of smoke was used.

Lardy News had a CoC North Africa campaign that went for 5 games and Rich discusses terrain for the desert. Overall it goes for 5 games, starting here: link

Add rough ground, ridges, dunes and soft sand that can not be traversed by vehicles to your terrain mix.

Your forces could also fight in Abyssinia or Somaliland. The Brits could fight French in Syria. Maybe LRDG or the Italian equivalent?

Would be much more dust than smoke. I do North African desert in 6mm (not skirmish!). In my readings, I don't see a lot about smoke being used but the dust stirred up by dozens of maneuvering tanks did obscure visibility tremendously.

Even a low ridge affects visibility so the above suggestions by mildbill and 79thPA are good. Vehicle breakage and running out of fuel are also good suggestions.
Jim

"Look I did warn you!"

Trajanus, you were right. ;)

Perhaps these encounters can be salvaged by a little reinforcing – use the Jock Column as your template –

One or two armored cars, maybe a portee instead, but surely a 25pdr and Quad attached (or definitely with off-board arty support), might allow the Brits to "shoot" an infantry contingent onto an objective.

This reinforcing might not be possible using your preferred skirmish rules here – but infantry didn't "swan" about without motorization, and the B-echelon needed to know where they wound up for sustaining resupply.

Don't knock those WW1 type scenarios. There's a lot of skill involved in trying to advance against a prepared defense in a way that it isn't reduced to advancing into a hail of bullets.

Assuming you don't want to be doing the advance against a prepared defense scenarios one alternative would be to assume the breakthrough already occurred. The "defender" wouldn't be starting from an established defensive position, but instead would be charged with moving up and securing a position against an attacker who would be seeking to cross the field. Both of course would be hoping to inflict maximum casualties on the other.

The desert isn't as flat as it might first appear. Ground variations of a couple of feet could make a big difference to survivability if you were an infantryman. Slightly larger variations might be needed for concealment of guns and vehicles. All of this happened regularly. So set up contours on your table.

Not knowing what kit might have been selected for the two forces, I might also suggest that fighting in North Africa was not limited to desserts.

Tunisia has quite varied terrain -- mountains, valleys, orchards, rivers, bridges … most everything you might have seen on the eastern front except perhaps large tracks of forest. All on a rockier, more arid base, perhaps. But still all the add-on scatter pieces from other theaters can probably be applied.

While you don't see the wide sweeping tank rushes with A13s or Mathildas, you do see the same Tommies slogging it out with Lee Enfields and Brens. Backing them up by the occasional Crusader Mk 3 or Valentine, and some 25pdrs, confronting some Black Shirts or Fanteria with their Carcanos and Bredas, backed by an AB41 or M13 should do just fine. My understanding of CoC or Bolt Action is that will be the level you want to present in any case.

I don't run Brits, but my 6mm Italian game army has seen a Tunisia game table on several occasions.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

Nice looking board Mark!

On folds of ground in desert terrain, or anywhere else, don't think these appear on mil maps, and although likely [most] everywhere, they wouldn't be counted on to present convenient pathways up to an objective – more likely than not, the enemy would instead have those tactically mapped and covered with early-warning signals, barbed wire, mines, and then by fire.

Saps, and sappers throughout history have been employed to create better attack approaches, for moving across missile-swept ground.

There is the night approach of course, or with low-vis, and then a possibility for infiltration tactics. If I were designing such a desert scenario, my players would smell out the scheme pretty quickly – "alright it's nighttime, you don't hear a thing, and your sentries are all asleep" (Ok Dave, tell me why we're playing this game then).

But back to "on the level" – the enemy might not be – perhaps on that ridge 1200m distance is a post with an MG. Is that protective fold of ground now sufficient from a higher enemy angle of fire? At range, small arms fire becomes plunging fire too, and drops right over folds, hillocks, and even onto the reverse slopes of hills and ridges.

As Bill suggested above, infantry scenarios closer to meeting engagements or quick range counterattacks could be explored.

If playing Bolt Action or CoC, does Trajanus or his bud possess a 3-1 superiority in attacking infantry vs. an enemy, to maybe pull off these infantry rushes? (though that's not the collection ratio for how those rulesets are sold, is it)

There is a reason lots of infantry attacks in the desert took place at night. It really isn't great terrain for interesting infantry skirmishes. The fronts were static much of the time, so you always have all the various tropes of positional warfare, raids etc.