Bulletin

10 March, 1937. The lead elements of the Penne Nere 3rd Blackshirt advanced down the Via Francia towards Guadalajara, moving out at 10:00 hrs from the crossroads below the 84th km stone. Concerned with the serious resistence encountered at the end of the previous day's advance, the column was led by the Amba Uork Battalion, on foot, with its recon platoon out in front. Deployed on either side of the road in the available flimsy cover was the February 6th Battalion of the XI International Brigade.

The critical factor was the rain, which limited visibility to 750 yds.

The February 6th was set up about 500 yards on either side of the road, without any pickets or outposts next to it, and as a result the Italian column just walked right between them, no one seeing anyone. The Internationals spotted the Italian recon platoon, but held their fire.

Their patience was rewarded when the Pasubio Battalion, in trucks, arrived at the crossroads following the Amba Uorks. The Pasubio were spotted and brought under cross fire from machineguns on both sides of the road. The column turned off to the East, intending to attack into the high wooded ground East of the highway, but were hit and pinned down as their trucks were shot up.

The Amba Uorks left a machinegun platoon and an artillery observer to cover to the South, down the highway, while the rest of the battalion wheeled back to face Northeast to take the February 6th group East of the highway in the rear. At this point the XI Brigade reconnaissance platoon appeared out of the rain, less than 500 yards from the machinegun position.

With the rain in their faces the recon men failed to notice the machinegun until it opened up on them. But the Republicans scattered for the ditches, with a few hit, and spotted the machinegun nest.

The Thaelmann Battalion had followed the recon platoon, unseen, and it deployed on either side of the road. As they were doing so, the Amba Uorks were ordered about again and lined up on either side of their machinegunners, facing South again.

Unfortunately for the Italians, the Thaelmanns made their spotting attempt, and the Blackshirts failed theirs. Opportunity fire brought a wave of fire sweeping half of the Italians back, the survivors spotted the source of the fire and returned it, but not very effectively.

Meanwhile Pasubio had untangled itself and had been conducting a fire fight with two companies and a machinegun platoon of the February 6th Battalion to the East of the crossroads. The French had the advantage of cover and better troop quality, and took almost no losses as they decimated Pasubio, demoralizing it and driving it to the rear in rout.

At this point, almost noon, a slightly lower roar of motors was heard, as the CRS, with two weak tank companies, a flame tank platoon (all I have painted!) appeared, preceded by a company of Bersaglieri on motorcycles and a company of armored cars. These forces deployed off the roads, only to discover that the fields were quite muddy, causing one armored car to bog down and one tank platoon to take damage. They didn't know that good luck prevented the whole group from getting bogged.

Under threat of armored attack the February 6th Battalion withdrew, their Western company, under orders from Brigade HQ which had arrived in Trijueque just behind the Thaelmann, while the larger Eastern group fell back on the slopes of the Bosque Brihuega, placing them neatly on the flank of the retreating Amba Uorks.

Then the rain lifted, visibility improved, and the artillery spotters of both sides began to go to work. A Republican 77mm battery began to get the range of the crossroads below the 84th km stone. There were plenty of targets as the Montenero Battalion, the last of the 11th Italian Regiment, arrived on trucks.

The tanks formed into a column on the road again and charged straight into the Thaelmann line. This was an unfortunate move by the CRS (the Italian armored group), as the lead tank platoon was promptly close assaulted by the Thaelman company that straddled the road. They had little difficulty against the tankettes, and destroyed the platoon, blocking the road.

Fortunately for the rest of the Italian tankers, they had a secondary road crossing the highway at this point, and without bogging any vehicles managed to get all their tanks spread out on the secondary road facing the Thaelmanns. Their machine gun fire hurt the Thaelmans to some extent, and the flame tank destroyed a Republican platoon. The Spanish company of the Thaelmanns fell back, one machinegun platoon was knocked out by Italian small arms and artillery fire, some remainder of Pasubio came up to support the tanks, and sure enough, a morale check pinned the Thaelmanns.

Behind them the Edgar Andr‚ Battalion detrucked, but was detected by Italian forward observers and seemed likely to receive artillery fire shortly.

Off board the Republicans were at least an hour from receiving two battalions of militia and a company of T-26 tanks, while the fascisti had an entire regiment still to enter.

At this point the referee asked players what they would think about throwing it in, as two of the other four games being played had concluded, and the referee was sleepy and anxious to get home. He pointed out that he hoped everyone was happy with the idea because that was what was going to happen. Two players had played CDIII before, the third was on his second wargame.

Just to make things perfect, the referee, who had put a lot of work into the scenario, managed to forget all of his markers at home. We improvised, kept track of losses on roster sheets, used pennies for Pin markers, had the players describe their orders to him. Strangely enough it worked and we managed better than 12 turns (3 hours) in four real world hours.

FURTHER NOTES

Only two regiments, the 10th and 11th of Penne Nere were involved, the third one, the 9th was over on the Brihuega axis. I brought the Republican battalions in one at a time, it is definately possible that both February 6th and Edgar Andr‚ arrived together. It is also possible that they were somewhat dug in by the morning of the 10th of March. I put in only one to start because of the record that Miaja was furious at Hans, the XI Brigade Commander, for going into action before all his forces were concentrated.

On the 11th the Italians, having brought up five gruppos of artillery (one each of 75mm, 100mm, 105mm and two of 149mm), opened an attack at 4:00 in the afternoon that overran the positions of the Edgar Andros to the East of the highway and of the February 6th directly straddling it. If you want to play the 11th instead of the 10th of March, you should have the XI International dug in, and have the 11th Regiment attacking straight down the highway with two tank companies and a company of flame thrower tankettes, as well as the rest of the CRS (less two tank companies that are with the 9th Regiment over on the Brihuega side) in support.

The 10th Regiment should be attacking from the Northeast corner and a little bit of the side of the board. If you want I can scan in the sketch map I did for the battle.

The Italian tank companies should have three tankettes (CD scale), perhaps even four, while there should be at least three flame tankettes.

The 37L23 is the Rosenberg infantry gun, a Russian 1915 production, not the Rheinmetal 37L45. You will have to scratch build one or just pretend. Both sides should have fairly unlimited trucks.

House rule, every time you move a vehicle off road, roll a D10. On a roll of 1-3, allow it to move according to normal mud restrictions, on a roll of 4-7, half of that, on a roll of higher than 8 a wheeled vehicle is bogged down, a tank takes a hit. Tanks will bog on a 9 or 10. I did not reveal to the players what the odds were, when they asked what is my movement rate for a truck off road, replied, "It has been raining for two days, this is not a Studebaker or Dodge 4x4, and the ground looks pretty soupy." This worked well. I also was planning to roll the die every time the T-26s (and probably should have for the Lancia IZs as well) moved at all, on a 10 the vehicle platoon takes a hit.

Finally, at the end of every hour I rolled a die, on a 1 or 2 the weather would get one degree better (went from light rain to mist at the beginning of the third hour), had I rolled a 9 or 10 it would have gotten worse. I was going to let the Republican player know that he could ask for air support after the rain had stopped for an hour, but we ended the game first.

The T-26s never entered the game, I had them scheduled for the next hour, along with the Apoyo and Espartacus Battalions.