We were thin on the ground this week. Chris was in Germany and Tim had work stuff on. I've been looking at doing an Ebro game with NQM for quite a while, so time to start work on it. I originally thought I could do the whole thing in one go, but that's probably ambitious. Any how, I needed to start to work out how to make bits of it work so I chopped the battle up into sections, and started with the central area, which saw V Corps attack around Mora de Ebro. For reference I had the Osprey Campaign book (annoyingly vague in places) and the "Ebro 1938" hex and counter game from the Polish company "Taktyka i Strategia ". The later has a good map and a full OOB. Where I could cross check both publications agreed. It was also helpful that the hexes in the board game were the correct scale size for NQM's Corps level game, where one base = one battalion.
I spent a morning working out the layout. Making the river fit was a challenge, same with my road sections. I may move over to using the felt strips from the Ronssoy game once it has had its last outing at the weekend. I also need to fond a way to represent height differences for the terrain more readily, so I have ordered some mdf hexes. Finally I had to make some temporary bridges out of matchsticks and lolly sticks.
The game was set up to run over 5 "days", each of three 8 hour turns. I made no adjustment for night, as it was fought in summer. The Republicans have quite a lot of kit, the Nationalists have battalions scattered about amongst the villages and an artillery battery. Not a lot of fun for the defender, so I ran the Nationalists, and Steve and Phil took the Republicans. We played NQM as it is straight out of the book mostly.
This picture is from the Republican side, showing the starting positions. The trucks with green counters are the Log units. They can do four re-supplies, before having to retire for a refill. The Nationalist units in villages and towns can re-ordg without a Med unit.
Steve took the left, Phil the right. Phil got the cavalry.
View from behind the Nationalist position. The Republicans have to capture the town/villages in the foreground. I put the Republican engineer units with the bridges approximately where I thought they should be, but let the players move them pre game if they wanted.
Steve stuck with putting his heavy bridge in front of his tanks. Wise move.
Phil started on his right with a lightweight bridge to get his cavalry across. We're two turns in here, and the Republican recce has been pretty effective. Their artillery is zeroing in on the defensive positions. They've done a lot if damage top right. BTW This is what the light bridges looked like:
 |
| Republican foot bridge under construction. |
For reasons unclear to me, Phil delayed deploying his big pontoon bridge. This enables the passage of everything at full speed, so I'd have put it down straight away. The lightweight bridge counts as difficult terrain and slows movement. NB In reality the initial phases made use of small boats to land "commando" groups to create an initial foothold. As this involved groups of 100 men or so, I ignored it as too small for the scale of resolution in a CSO game.
Phil overran my left flank guard. Being under bombardment I was unable to re-org, which made winning the post combat outcome easier for Phil. Plus I couldn't roll more than a 2 at this point. Phil decided to send one of his cavalry regiments across the mountains.
There's lots to do when umpiring and running one of the sides at the same time, so I forgot a couple of things early on. First I didn't run any air attacks, secondly I forgot to take some pictures. Anyway, Steve got his armour and infantry across and overran the garrison in Miravet. My aircraft had made an appearance, completely failing to spot anything on any of the bridges.
Phil has his pontoon bridge down and is getting his support units across the river. The garrison in Mora de Ebro has been completely pummelled by the Corps artillery and was brushed aside. Note to self: Having two heavy gun bases was probably too much, with village defences only rated as medium.
Steve's attack on Miravet was aided by a whole load of sixes being rolled. That did give him an out of ammo problem, with units needing resupply scattered across his half of the board and only one log truck.
Ah ha! The Italian pilots spot Steve's bridge and bomb it ineffectually.
The Nationalists are being hard pressed. Some much needed reinforcements start to arrive.
Phil's concerted attack on the entrenched Nationalist artillery is initially rebuffed.
The sole Republican air unit in this turn is allocated a ground attack role, rather than defend the bridges. It isn't immediately obvious in the original picture, so I have enhanced it a bit.
This time the attack is successful.
The Nationalists catch a field gun battery mid crossing. Damage to both bridge and guns, but not enough to make a difference.
Reinforcements arrive at La Fatarella, which is now being pounded by V Corps heavy guns. Steve and Phil have a pincer attack going on. BTW The trees are on the hex corners deliberately. All the hexes touched are wooded, but this method keeps the centre clear to put toys in.
The defenders have dug in, increasing the defences to Heavy.
All to no avail. Phil & Steve concentrated on the town, ignoring the outer defences. I counter attack with those, but can't stop the town being captured.
End state for the evening, shown from the Republican side. Looks pretty good for them.
We got a lot done in under two hours. Nationalist reserves were just starting to appear. Various lessons were learned for me as scenario designer, and for players. Steve encountered the "unsupported armour is light in defence in towns" rule apparently for the first time. The Nationalist armour arrived, shot up one of Steve's gun batteries, immediately ran out of ammo and had to retire. The air involvement was mostly negligible in effect.
Some thinking to do. I suspect I am working my way up to doing the battle around Gandesa which took place a week or so after this part of the campaign. There might be some entertainment to be gained from the right flank river crossing, especially as I've built the bridges now, but it will still be a game of static defence for the Nationalists for the most part.
Still a good first try, and the players were happy.
Comments
Post a Comment