Designer's Notes

First, I'd like to credit Ben Knight for first publishing a Europa scenario for Syria, "Operation Exporter," in issue #15 of The Grenadier. My only problem with Ben's offering is that I never have been able to find a copy of Grenadier #15, much less play the scenario. In fact, I did most of this version several years ago, before I knew that Ben's version existed. If nothing else, this interpretation adds naval units, which I doubt "Operation Exporter" did.

Victory Conditions and Surrender

At first, I used the original WitD rules for Vichy surrender-Syria surrenders when Beyrouth, Damas and Alep fall. This gave Vichy an attractive option of withdrawing into the supply terminal of Beyrouth and accepting a siege. The best the British can do against this is a massed 2:1 attack with a -1 modifier for rough terrain. Not good prospects at all for the Allies. This is acceptable in WitD, because the Allies can theoretically commit as many of their avaliable troops as they wish to the Syria invasion. You don't have that option using the historical force constraints.

My own interpretation of the situation is that the morale of the French colonial army would not have accepted a long siege in a tightly blockaded port. Something had to be done to dissuade the Vichy player from using this strategy. The surrender die roll is my somewhat inelegant solution to this. This limits the appeal of the scenario from a competitive standpoint, but so does the Beyrouth siege ploy.

Another minor point about the original VCs is that when the French surrendered they still held Alep. The Indians were close but they hadn't yet taken the place. The Australians were also only on the outskirts of Beyrouth. The French asked for terms before the showplace of their Near East possessions was destroyed in house-to-house fighting, thereby gaining the city forty years grace from that fate.

The surrender die roll does introduce a high amount of luck into the victory conditions. If you want to have a truly competitive game, you should probably devise VCs using the surrender die roll modifiers as negative VPs scored every turn. That would reward accomplishments and not luck.

Historically, I think there should actually be a surrender die roll at the instant of invasion. It should probably even have a positive modifier. Plus three might be about right. The Allies really did hope the French would throw down their arms and welcome them. This roll would be totally absurd in a Battle Scenario, however. After all, we've already set the game up, let's at least play it a while.

Another way of tackling the situation would be to give the French additional supply steps to begin the scenario (2 or 3 more?), but have Beyrouth and Damas cease functioning as supply terminals as soon as the Allies invade. There is considerable historical evidence to support this approach. The British did successfully blockade the Levant ports, and it is difficult to imagine the local industry contributing much to the alleviate the condition. Weygand had built up a large force in Syria in 1940, before the fall of France, and had stockpiled considerable supplies. In fact, Vichy shipped some of these to Iraq during the Iraqi revolt.

Using this approach might be fine for WitD. The trouble is that, for a Battle Scenario, it shapes results too far to the historical outcome. All of a sudden, all the Vichy units are unsupplied, and the battle comes to a quick conclusion. That might be historically accurate, but its not much fun for a Battle Scenario. The surrender die roll modifier of +1 on and after the Jul I turn is meant to somewhat account for the cumulative effect of Syria's isolation.

I think that rolling two dice makes a much better surrender simulation than just one (like I used in "Revolt in Iraq"). Since two dice approximate a normal, not a linear, distribution, the various die roll modifiers are cumulative in a non-linear fashion. For example, taking Damas or Alep (total modifier +1) increases the chance of surrender from 1/36 to 3/36, or an increase of 2/36. Taking Damas and Alep (total modifier +2) increases the chance of surrender from 1/36 to 6/36, an increase of 5/36. This nicely represents the interactive demoralization factor of such events.

The Vichy Air Force

The Vichy Levant fighter force was a mixture of MS.406s, D.520s and a few Po.63s. Representing these with a D.520 unit as is done in the original WitD may give the French a little too much advantage. The attack factor of six gives the D.520 unit quite an edge over the RAF's Hurricanes. If you feel using an MS.406 moves too far in the other direction, a 5175 Mixed unit is another possibility.

From what I've found, the French bomber force seems to have flown more American-built Martin 167As, represented in Europa as A-22s, than LeO 451s. I considered substituting A-22s, but their 3 factor TBF scared me off.

The rule requiring a roll for damage after each mission is taken from Africa Orientale and tries to reflect the difficulty in supplying an active air force in a blockaded overseas colony.

The air replacement point represents the aircraft flying in from France and North Africa. What usually happened in playtesting, however, was that the Vichy air units were aborted, not destroyed, and the air replacement point rotted in the hangars. We only need this rule because there are so few French air units involved and their air repair roll is so low.

British 1st Cavalry Division Motorization.

In addition to the conversion of 4th Cavalry Brigade into the Habbaniya Rescue Force, or HABFORCE, another of the division's brigades had exchanged their horses for Bren carriers and lorries by the time of the Syrian campaign.

"The Duck's Bill."

The 17th Indian Brigade also participated in the Syrian campaign. It seized and guarded the portion of the Baghdad-Turkey railroad which traversed Vichy territory through the area called "The Duck's Bill" in northeast Syria. I omitted the brigade from the OB's initial forces and assume it to be performing this duty. The brigade appears later because, if the campaign went badly, it seems reasonable to assume the Allies would have decided the Turkish railroad could take care of itself.

British Commandos.

The British kept a "Special Service" Brigade in the Middle East during early 1941, as part of the force tagged to invade Rhodes. When events moved too fast to allow the operation, A and D battalions of the brigade were sent to Greece, where they operated as "Layforce." Battalion C of the commandos landed in hex 19:4309 in an attempt to capture a bridge over the Litani river. The mission was a complete failure. The French had received prior warning and were waiting for the raiders.

I waffled back and forth for a long time from a 0-8 to a 1-8 rating for this unit. Then, in TEM #27, John Astell gave the draft OB for British commandos which only served to muddy the waters even more (Layforce was eliminated in Crete AND Syria%). If you call it a 0-8, you pretty much have to use the Litani River and the bridge seizure rules or there's not much for the unit to do using standard Europa commando rules. I eventually just called it a 1-8 and quit worrying.

This battalion was stationed at Famagusta, Cyprus, transported to Egypt (staging area) and then sent into Lebanon/Syria.

Vichy Ground Forces.

The only change in the Vichy ground OB is to allow them to set up three hexes from the border instead of WitD's two. The only reason for this is to mesh with the "Europa as History" piece.

French Loyalties.

There is a fairly well-known incident in the campaign where one of the Free French legionnaire units refused to fight because they found they were opposed by other legionnaires. By the end of the campaign, the British considered the Free French force unreliable except for the Motor Marine Battalion. I toyed with the idea of rolling a die when Free French units attacked Vichy units to see if the attack would be halved or something, but it was way too messy. I decided that sort of thing was represented by the normal combat die roll. Besides, if you had a rule like that in the campaign game, you would just never commit Free French troops in Syria.

The RAF.

The Hurri2 unit in the Allied initial forces actually represents 80 Squadron (Hurricanes), 280 Squadron (reconnaissance Hurricanes), and 3 Squadron of the Royal Australian Air Force (Tomahawks or P4013s). The Blenheim group represents 11 Squadron and 84 Squadron.

Naval Units in the Syrian Campaign

The Syrian campaign offers us a chance to test future Europa naval systems on a very small scale. While the number of units is low and the naval situation admittedly lopsided, the circumstances do present every possible air-sea-ground interaction.

Background

Free for once from the threat of the Luftwaffe, the Royal Navy put in an impressive showing along the Lebanese coast in the form of the 15th Cruiser Squadron. Half a dozen cruisers participated, along with a swarm of destroyers. A small French flotilla opposed them.

The British successfully maintained the blockade of the Levant, sinking the Chevalier Paul, a French destroyer running ammunition, and the steamer St. Didier. The submarine Parthian sunk its Vichy counterpart Souffleur in the Bay of Djounieh of June 25. On July 9, the French flotilla leaders Guepard, Valmy and Vauquelin embarked an infantry battalion at Salonika. They were turned back on the final day of the campaign, still 200 nautical miles from Syria.

There was considerable air action over the fleet, as Fulmars and Hurricanes battled Ju88s and Vichy aircraft. The British were concerned enough to divert their Hurricane group to fleet support (see the accompanying "Europa-as-History" article).

The French considered sending a large squadron from North African ports to contest the Royal Navy in the 'eastern Mediterranean, but eventually decided against it.

Using Naval Forces in "Invasion of Syria."

To use a Europa naval module with the scenario, delete the special naval support rules and make the following changes to the "Invasion of Syria" Order of Battle. For smaller ships, the OB gives both the class and the individual ship names to maintain flexibility for any system.

If your naval system of choice uses submarines, the French should have three. During the campaign, Caiman got in a torpedo shot at HMS Ajax, but missed. Caiman, Morse and Souffleur are all Requin class boats.

I give the British two submarines, although the only one I have specifically been able to identify is Parthian, a Proteus class boat. Parthian had been operating in the Aegean, along with Torbay, a Trident class. Torbay sunk a large Rumanian liner there. I have assumed that Torbay moved to the Levant coast at the same time as Parthian, but I don't have any specific evidence of this.

Air Units

If your naval system does not use squadron-sized units, you can ignore the Vichy naval air squadron, and use one group of Albacores on Cyprus. Another option is to reduce squadron air attack and defense strengths by one from their full group ratings.

Two Royal Navy squadrons of Fairey Fulmars operated with the Allied invasion force, close enough to a full group, I felt, to justify a full Europa air unit. You may wish to use two squadrons instead.

The Luftwaffe air unit must always be allocated to naval cooperation (or a similar type naval mission, depending on your naval rules). It may fly no other mission, including transfer.

Victory Conditions

Add the following to the standard "Invasion of Syria" victory conditions:

+1 per Allied CL or CLA sunk
+1 per hit on Allied naval units
-1 per hit on Vichy naval units

The Invasion of Syria "Operation Exporter" June-July, 1941

Rules
Orders of Battle
Designer's Notes

Related

Europa As History The Invasion of Syria