So it finally arrived, the last Shedquarters day of the year and the play thorough of the Battle of the Ebro NQM scenario I've been working on. Phil, Chris K and Richard were joined by Martin R (who played in the summer lawn game) and Alan P who is a complete newbie to the quarterly game squad. And to NQM and the SCW. What could possibly go wrong? Alan volunteered to join us when I realised I had way to much kit for just two Republican players to handle.
We started at 10am for coffee and briefings. Martin, Chris and Alan ran the Republicans, Phil and Richard the Nationalists. The first day sees the Nationalists caught completely by surprise and I hoped to get these three turns done in double quick time. In practice that turned out not to be the case as the Republican players agonised over where to put their crossing points and the use of their boat sections. This was despite me giving them a handy river crossing crib sheet, which you can see in front of Alan at the bottom of the table.
Eschewing any form of stealth, Chris ordered everyone to open fire with as much artillery as possible on the targets scouted by pregame reconnaissance. This included his tanks being used as SPGs. You can see them here. One of them already has an out of ammo marker. We had a lot of those. In the distance his recce team has crossed on a pontoon further up the river and is scouting the Nationalist positions. Yellow markers mean that something has been spotted.
Alan had some heavy corps artillery and pounded Fayon. He, too, ran out of ammo.
Martin was the keenest to get his bridges set up and get to grips with the enemy. Getting the wider bridges down was essential to a rapid advance as only infantry and recce could use the narrower pontoon bridges.
Anyhow, the Nationalists were now on full alert after the massive artillery bombardment.
This allowed Phil to respond immediately by appropriating all the reserves and rushing them to his sector of the front.
Alan was struggling with the conundrum of how to resupply his troops on the far bank with only a foot bridge as he met an approach from Richard's forces by emptying all his magazines in one round of shooting.
Chris is mainly sitting back and pounding with his guns. I expected him to be the more aggressive of the bridge builders, but that proved not to be the case. His intention was to do so much damage to the various village garrisons that he'd just be able to walk in. This requires more prep in my SCW NQM games than normal as I allow garrisons of village to re-organise without medical units and also when under bombardment.
Luckily for Alan he had the rules writer to give him sage advice.
Martin is crossing in force now and has deployed his "iron bridge" (recently scratch built from foam board and lolly sticks).
Three turns in, end of 25th July. Time for a lunch break with a rather pleasant Rioja that Chris brought along.
I took a chance to get down the other end of the table to take some pictures. Phil has counter attacked strongly using a Foreign Legion Tercio and supporting Regulares. Martin has taken the precaution of digging in.
Richard has also turned to the spade to slow the Republican advance on his flank.
Chris has upgraded his footbridge to something more substantial and erected his iron bridge, enabling him to push his armour forwards and move up support units.
The Nationalist air force arrives at last, and hits one of the bridges. Republican AAA proves to be effective at reducing the number of attacks.
Republican armour complete with "tank riders" (they're not - Chris is just making sure his armour doesn't get isolated in close terrain) surge forwards.
Phil is trying to establish a defensive perimeter around Gandesa. The struggle will become epic.
Air attacks on the bridges at Alan's end of the table are preventing him bringing forwards the support units he needs for his attack on Fayon.
I missed the picture on the main table, so here's a shot of a corner of the dead pile. Phil's aggressive defence involved him putting the Front HQ into the actual front line, where it was overwhelmed and destroyed by the Republicans. I didn't punish the Nationalists as much as I should have done for this piece of folly.
Can't miss a picture of one on Martin's BT-5s crossing a bridge whilst it was under air attack.
Republican armour drives into the heart of the Nationalist position.
Richard is at a fairly low ebb at this point in the game as Alan's forces, reinforced by a Division released by Chris, overwhelm some of his few remaining troops.
Phil counters at Gandesa and takes back control of The Pimple and digs in.
Time for everyone to take some time out to consider their next moves. Richard and Phil have ordered the up river sluice gates to be opened in an effort to wash way the temporary bridges. It renders some of them unusable, but not so bad they can't be repaired. In any event the Republic's forces have mostly crossed now.
The Republicans hold Gandesa temporarily, but Nationalist bombers start to pound it as they bring up armour and more troops.
The Nationalist air force has switched from just bombing bridges (probably a little too late) and is starting to turn on Republican ground forces.
The Nationalists have retaken Gandesa and fortified it, but the Republicans have taken The Pimple. Probably should have declared it impassable to armour.
Nationalist air power pounds the Republican field defences. Whilst it inflicts casualties, it would probably have been better to go for the Republican artillery.
The Republicans have a strong position, but the Nationalists have created a salient on the centre right, and reinforcements are pouring in.
Gandesa still defies the Republican attacks, but at a heavy cost.
After 6 to 7 hours of play we've done four full days. The Republicans have made major gains, but have stalled a bit. They have a reserve division that can still be released to them, but the Nationalists have twice that still to come, and armour too. Use of field defences are enabling the Republicans to hold off counter strokes but they are unlikely to make any further progress.
Time to bring the game to a close and head down to The George for a pint and some dinner.
The Republicans probably did slightly better than their historical antecedents, but the game showed the futility of what they were trying to do. It ran really well, which was a relief as it it was a major enterprise putting it on. There was a lot of kit on the table and we didn't even use everything I'd planned to put out.
Not everything went perfectly, and I had to frig the Nationalist air attacks to keep them in the game. On reflection the Republicans had too much artillery and it was too effective. I should probably not have allowed the field guns to fire indirectly over the major ridge lines. Also, using standard NQM recce/spotting for artillery assumes that everyone has working radios and I don't think that's the case in the Spanish Civil War.
We did discuss playing this at Front Scale, which would make each base a brigade rather than a battalion, but I think that you'd have to make so many compromises in terms of what went where that it wouldn't really look or feel like the Ebro battle.
No doubt I'll be back here in the future, whether the Ebro or elsewhere. It all comes down to maps and orbats. Of course I didn't do the attacks north of Fayon, nor the attempted crossing to Martin's left, so there's possibly still some juice in this campaign.
What a fine day's gaming in the company of some fine fellows.
Comments
Post a Comment