Introduction

Operation Infatuate is a solitaire Europa demonstration game for Second Front covering the Allied landings on the island of Walcheren, off the coast of Holland, in November of 1944. The scenario lasts for only one player turn, but can serve as an introduction to many new concepts introduced in SF, including naval units, port fortifications, coast defenses, flooding, strategic air wings, landing craft, LVTs and amphibious landings.

Background

After the Arnhem failure, Montgomery's 21st Army Group spent October, 1944, battling to clear the land bordering the Scheldt Estuary and open the port of Antwerp. As the month drew to a close, the 2nd Canadian Army finally cleared the Breskens pocket (hex 16A:0827) in Operation SWITCHBACK and South Beveland (hex 16A:0826), in Operation VITALITY. The Germans still occupied Walcheren Island, and still blocked the usage of Antwerp harbor. To secure Walcheren, the Allies organized a combined operation, code-named Operation INFATUATE. On November 1, units from the Canadian 2nd Corps were to assault the island across the Scheldt Estuary itself, while a landing force of Royal Marine commandos attacked from the seaward side...

Components

All the components needed to play Operation Infatuate can be found in Second Front.

Prepare for Play

Set up Map 16A. You may fold the map so only the northwest quarter of Map 16A shows. This quarter of the map contains the entire playable area for the scenario.

Set up all units as listed in the Operation Infatuate Orders of Battle, below. The player is the Allied Player.

Special Rules

Operational Boundaries

Play is limited to full or partial hexes in the northwest quarter of Map 16A. The creases in the map define the "northwest quarter."

Allied ground units may not enter by land any hex except the hex in which they begin the turn and hex 16A:0727.

Weather.

Determine weather and sea conditions normally for the Nov I 44 turn. The weather on Oct II 44 was Mud.

German Reaction Movement.

If successful in the Enemy Reaction die roll (Rule 32D), the Axis will react by moving the 1-2-6* Inf III 'A' into hex 16A:0727.

Flooding.

The Axis will attempt partial flooding of hex 16A:0727.

Planning.

The Allied player may plan an amphibious operation for the Nov I 44.

LVTs and Narrow Straits.

An LVT (and the units it carries) may treat a narrow straits hexside as a river hexside for combat purposes.

RAF Basing.

The Allied player may place the base for his strategic air wing in any clear terrain hex in Great Britain. It does not have to be in an all-land hex. (There are no all-land hexes; in Britain on map 16A.)

Miscellaneous.

All units are always in supply. The Allied player may perform naval gunfire support. No units of any kind are available other than those listed in the scenario Order of Battle. There is no pre-game movement.

A great many SF rules are unneeded for this scenario and should be ignored--garrisons and partisans, for example. We considered an exhaustive list of these to be unnecessary.

Victory Conditions

The game lasts the single Allied player turn of Nov I 44. The Allied Player wins if he controls hex 16A:0727 at the end of his player turn and there are three or less hits on the British naval task force.

Designer's Notes

Second Front contains many concepts new to Europa, particularly in the area of naval and amphibious operations. This makes the game somewhat inhibiting, especially since the most important naval and amphibious operations occur at the beginning of the scenarios. This "scenario" is intended to serve as a teaching tool for these new concepts. We hope Operation Infatuate can shorten the SF learning curve for both veteran Europa players and new recruits.

These notes discuss both the Operation Infatuate scenario and the accompanying "Europa as History" article. My primary source was The Battle for Antwerp, by J. L. Moulton. Moulton commanded a commando company during the Walcheren assault.

Allied OB.

The British committed only part of the 1st Commando Brigade: 4 Commando. It is therefore arguable if the brigade deserves inclusion here.

The British 76th Antiaircraft Brigade, consisting of the 112th and 113th antiaircraft regiments, provided direct fire support for the crossing from Breskens. This specific unit is absent from SF's order of battle, presumably contained in the 2-3-10 corps AA brigades. I considered the Canadian antiaircraft battalion to be a reasonable Europa substitution for this unit.

I didn't find a reference directly listing the presence of the Royal Engineer tank brigade. However, the Infatuate attack force did include a number of Royal Engineer units, plus detachments from the British 79th Armored Division including flail tanks and bridging tanks. I decided this was enough to justify the brigade, since rarely was a unit like this actually used in its full Second Front brigade strength. At any rate, including the Royal Engineers is certainly in keeping with the eclectic nature of the Allied attack force.

It is usually impossible to have the absolutely "correct" air units in a scenario as small as this. A squadron that flies a mission to Walcheren on one day might fly a mission to ' Nijmegen the next. The air units are a variety representative of types available to the RAF's 84 Air Group, the tactical air unit that supported the operation, and to RAF Bomber Command.

Allied naval gunfire support came from the war-worn battleship Warspite, the monitors Erebus and Roberts, and some armed LCs. Some may question if this warrants a full 16- point naval task force. In the SF naval system, however, a task force is an all or nothing affair, and it is hard to imagine the British risking their precious commando units without sufficient support from the Royal Navy.

German OB.

Since the Allies won the battle with their relatively weak (after all the modifiers) OB, we had to keep the strength of the German defense pretty low. The 70th Infantry Division had heavy losses defending South Beveland and the area around Ghent. Its cadre representation is probably accurate. The 70th's real claim to fame was being the "Stomach" Division or the "White Bread" Division. Its troops were veterans, mostly of the Eastern Front, afflicted with stomach complaints. By keeping these troops together in one unit, the German quartermasters could more easily arrange for a special diet, and therefore keep the troops on duty.

The strength of the port fortification is a toss-up, but if it were a 2-5-0* instead of a 1-2-0*, the Allies would have a much harder time. The fortification unit represents the 202nd Naval Artillery Battalion, the 810th Naval Flak Regiment, and the 89th Fortress Regiment.

The German unit on the island of Schouen is a purely generic unit included to allow use of Reaction Movement.

Mines.

Originally, I wanted to let the Germans deploy a mine at Walcheren. One source states the Germans had placed about 2400 water mines around Walcheren- that would seem to deserve a Europa mine point. Also, including a mine would expand the educational scope of the scenario, which was the main goal in the first place.

Unfortunately, in Second Front a single mine point is incredibly effective against a strong TF. Since each mine point attacks each naval strength point and not each naval unit, the Germans would get to roll on the naval gunnery table 16 times when the Allied TF entered the Walcheren hex and again at the start of the step it swept the mines. The chances of one mine point inflicting no damage on a 16-point TF are roughly 1 in 18 each time it fires. In reality, neither the Allied TF attacking the German coast defenses, nor the Allied LCs incurred significant mine damage. By adding a mine point at Walcheren, such an outcome, although not impossible, is certainly unlikely. My conclusion was that the mines actually present are represented in SF as part of the port fortification unit and not worthy of separate mine status in the scenario.

Flooding.

Humanitarian concerns of the Allied coalition notwithstanding, it was the Allies who purposefully flooded Walcheren. To make its defense more difficult and also to take the option away from the Germans, British bombers bombed and broke the dike near Westkapelle on October 3. The resulting gap let in the ocean at every high tide and soon flooded the entire center of the island. To represent what actually happened in the Walcheren flooding would require incredibly complex, little used, special rules. Allowing the Germans to attempt to partially flood Walcheren, as they would normally in SF, is the simplest way to handle this.

There are several different ways to interpret this. You could assume that the Allied dike bombing prevented the Germans from flooding the hex, in that it at least took the surprise element out of the flooding. In this case, the German flooding die roll would be unsuccessful.

Final Comments.

To be honest, the wording of the new naval and amphibious rules needs a little polishing. Some of the explanations published in recent TEMs have already helped in this area. These rules just haven't had the twenty-plus years of careful refinement from which the rest of Europa has benefited. I needed plenty of help from Rick Gayler and others to sort through them correctly for this piece. Hopefully, this demonstration game and its accompanying comprehensive example of play will help you in interpreting some of the intricacies of the system and increase your enjoyment of SF.

Operation Infatuate The Battle of Walcheren Island: November 1-8, 1944

Introduction and Rules
Allied Order of Battle
Axis Order of Battle
Pronounciation
Europa as History
First Walcheren Campaign 1809
The Real Battle
Rules Questions