The arrival of the Partizan Press Trilogy (Arriba Espana, Ultima Cnaada, and Tanks and Ducks) as well as a spate of articles on the subject in the English wargame press reawakened a long dormant interest in that unusual and, for me at least, little known period. I knew what many of us know -- that it was a proving ground for WWII weaponry and an ideological struggle between ... well that was a little fuzzy.
The high tide of the Anarchist attack. Figures from the collection of Pat Condray. Photo by Pat Condray.
A friend of mine who years ago loaned me Orwell's Homage To Cattalonia commented "A republic whose most conservative faction was the Communists had to be in trouble." The Republic was to be weakened by factional squabbles throughout the War. While the Rebels (Nationalists, or Traditionalists) instinctively describe these factions as either Communists or Anarchists even that is a gross over simplification.
The other side was far from monolithic. Franco knew how troublesome his factions could be and took drastic steps to minimize this problem. The most dramatic example was the enforced merger of the Carlist and Falange Movements. The Carlists were still resisting the violation of Salic Law that placed a Queen (Cristina, followed by her daughter Isabella) on the throne in 1833 instead of her uncle Don Carlos. Essentially they were trying to repeal the 19th Century, or, more likely, the 18th.
The Falange, on the other hand, was a 20th Century political movement parterned on the Italian and German Fascist movements. They were again thwarted in the 20th Century. Spain now has a monarch of Alphonsine (not Carlist) line of the Bourbon family.
Politics aside, the tactical and technical issues are quite intriguing. While working on my master's thesis I came across a great deal of material on the experiments with the use of tactical (quite successful) and strategic (uniformally less so) airpower.
Much of the equipment was to carry over into WWII, including the FLAK 88, the PZKWI, and even the BF109 (including the BATTLE OF BRITAIN Bf109E in the last months of the conflict.) However, the Italian Fiat CR32 seems to have been crucial to winning the skies from the more advanced Polikarpov I-15 and I-16 fighters, and while the Russian T-26B and BT-5 tanks were markedly superior to the German and Italian (L3/35) models they encountered. This was offset somewhat by the superior morale and elan of the Nationalist horse cavalry.
I was inspired to invest in figures for the period and set out to devise rules for an operational level (tactical to grand tactical) game which would permit the use of homogenous brigade level units, which I thought at the time would be needed to reflect the colorful eccentricity of the combatants--a brigata or column of Anarchists here, a brigata or Tercio of Falange Espanol or Requetes there, etc. I concluded that even Command Decision would require too many figures to achieve the desired mix of brigades (which, as it turns out, was not the case.)
Arriba Espana rules seemed to have the desired level of representation. However, while the rules contained many interesting features including a simple way to incorporate air and off board artillery and the vagaries of political allegiance on the Republican side, there were features I found unsatisfying. Notably dice were quite dominant, and casualties were exclusively moral until base contact was made. As usual in such cases I set out to write my own rules, using a 3 figure base or vehicle for a company, roster casualties with base removal at 10 hits against a battalion (whatever the range) and retaining use of phased moves and order chits.
The first experiments, including COLDWARS 91 featured a takeoff on the celebrated Italian Guadalajara Offensive of May 1937. In real life the campaign served to demonstrate that a couple of motorized divisions, road bound by muddy fields, lacking aircover, and with limited anti-aircraft weapons make a good target for tactical air attack. (With upwards of 100 Russian fighters and attack bombers engaged it also challenges the veracity of those who accuse the Republican command of not concentrating air assets). Lacking aircraft rules, and relying on an early variation on Arriba Espana, I didn't do the scenario justice. However, by increasing the role of the counter attacking Russian armor and scaling down the scenario to allow Moscardo's mixed Spanish brigade to participate a reasonable match was arranged, even though the results were indecisive.
At HISTORICON 91, I became more ambitious. By then I had done enough conversions (based on old Scruby Horses and HOTSPUR medium machine gunners) to bring in a brigade of cavalry to fulfill the role of Monasterio's famous 1st Cavalry Division. A scenario very loosely based on TERUEL (very loose--a campaign reduced to a battle) was developed and conducted with brand new players. A small force of Falangists, Gardia Civil, and demoralized line infantry had to hold out against 3 brigades and a battalion of T-26b tanks.
After several turns the Nationalists could dice for reinforcements--a Carlist brigade, a battalion of PZKWIB, a brigade of Moorish Regulates, and the cavalry brigade. Dice they did, but not well. The valiant garrison was wiped out before the first relief column put in an appearance, which is what happened in real life.
By NOVAG 91 my rules were somewhat codified. Troops had grades of morale and training which varied independently. For example, Spanish regulars on both sides, as well as Italian regulars, frequently had more formal training than some of the political militias, but were less motivated. Continental Internationals, based on various readings, suffered from the pre-1914 French lack of interest in musketry ("the rifle is something they are given to hang a bayonet on" according to one doughboy) but were good with machineguns and grenades. Anarchists, Trotskyites, and Falange were well motivated but not well trained. Republicans seemed to be almost superstitious about cavalry charges, so they were weakened in morale under those circumstances. Anarchists were given extra credit on fighting tanks and buildings because of their legendary fondness for dynamite and grenades (elite anarchists only). Still no aircraft (I've only painted a couple of planes so far).
Spanish Civil War 1936-1939
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