As desultory harassing fire creeps close to my position, I recognize the sound of the loose cannons that can only be Battery Long. But wait! Battery Long is on our side! Where's the FO? Find the field phone!

In "Counterbattery" of TEM #42, Jason Long makes some valid points about the limits of naval gunfire availability in the Mediterranean as presented in "Cunningham's Pond" of TEM #37. He ends by suggesting that gunfire support be limited to "no more than a point or two" and available only "a couple of times a year." Jason makes some good arguments, but I would like to explain the reasoning behind how I arrived at the amount of support in the original article. It didn't come out of the air.

Jason maintains that there were only two major incidents of naval ground support in North Africa, in Operations COMPASS and EXPORTER. But there were other instances that could rate a Europa presence. The first of these is continued support after the completion of COMPASS, during the assaults on Bardia and Tobruk in early 1941. Another is at the Allied landing at Basra, Iraq. Finally, there were bombardments of the cutoff Axis positions at the Libyan-Egyptian frontier after Operation CRUSADER, which may or may not deserve a point of gunfire. There were, of course, some other minor bombardments that definitely would not deserve even a point of Europa gunfire.

Up until the last drafts of "Cunningham's Pond," the article included the limitation that the Allies could not use naval gunfire within ten hexes of any airfield occupied by a Luftwaffe air unit. -Rah of the incidents above would qualify under this restriction. There was no provision for bombing naval gunfire points. I changed this in the later versions to allow the Axis to bomb the naval gunfire markers and gain VPs for scoring hits. I think this represents the risk-return trade-off better than an arbitrary quota on the number of support attempts.

The reason for the scarcity of naval gunfire was not so much the unavailability of naval units, but the unwillingness to put those units in harm's way for a very limited return. The examples above were the only actual uses of significant naval gunfire not because there were no ships available at other times, but because those were the only times there was little risk of air attack. Notice that in "Cunningham's Pond" there is no limit on the number of hits that can be scored on a gunnery marker in a single turn. If there are plenty of Axis air units in the area, there is a potential for a minor naval disaster and a considerable Axis VP gain. The Allied benefit, however-at most four points of artillery-is quite limited.

Looking over the campaign, it seems to me that every time the Royal Navy could provide low-risk support to 8th Army, it did. Jason argues that the navy had "too much on its plate" to provide support. In fact, several times they did fire in support of the land campaign at the exact time when their plate was heaped particularly high. They could always find a support squadron if there was a good opportunity.

So why 4 points? Let's say the British did use naval gunfire points in Operation COMPASS when they were playing the original Europa in real life. Why did they do it? To raise the odds column of course-remember, incremental odds aren't official. Jason says the two gunboats and the monitor should rate only 1 point, but that the gunfire support was used. That can only imply that it only took 1 point to get to the next odds column. I maintain that if it had taken more points to get to the next odds column, the Royal Navy would have found them. They could count Italian strength points in the stack just like we can, right? Four points allows the British to usually get a one-column shift against a typical Italian division with an extra supporting unit, so it seemed about right to me, even if the units historically engaged don't rate as such.

Here is the entry from Rohwer and Hummelchen, in Chronology of the War at Sea 1939-1945 for the period involving COMPASS:

9-17 Dec Mediterranean

A supporting force under Rear-Adm. Rawlings is formed to aid the Western Desert Force in its offensive against the Italian Army in Cyrenaica. It is composed of four groups:

Force A: Monitor Terror, gunboats Ladybird, Aphis and Gnat.
Force B: Destroyers Vampire, Vendetta, Voyager and Waterhen.
Force C: Battleships Barham, Malaya, one cruiser and seven destroyers.
Force D: Carrier Eagle, three cruisers and three destroyers.

These units, particularly Forces A and B, carry out many shellings of Italian positions and supply routes on the coast.

If Admiral Rawlings had needed to commit more strength he could have. It was available. Two turns later when the Aussies attacked Bardia, they needed a few more points and the British briefly sailed up some battleships for additional firepower.

At roughly the same time as Rawlings' force was bombarding Italian positions in Africa, the battleships Warspite and Valiant, the carrier Illustrious, and the cruisers Ajax, Orion, Sydney, Gloucester, and York were engaged in covering a convoy for Malta, and sailing into the Strait of Otranto to bombard Valona, Albania.

So why only 4 points? More than four gets into the realm of battleships for extended periods. Even where there was no threat of air attack, there were submarines. It was too risky leaving a battleship in one place for long time to allow for prolonged gunfire support. Even if Cunningham is convinced he can send in a battleship, he still won't expose it long enough to gain more than four points of support. The battleships were available for Bardia precisely because they weren't needed for weeks on end.

About the attack on Bardia, Jason claims, "Bombarding Tobruk or Bardia at night really doesn't compare to standing off the Normandy beaches for weeks on end." Jason is exactly right again. But 4 naval gunfire points (or 2 points in 1942) really doesn't compare to multiple 16-point TFs in Second Front, does it? And, if the British fleet had decided to pound Bardia for weeks on end, it would have severely chagrined the Australians inside, who only took a couple of days to capture the town. They bombarded the place as long as they needed to get the desired effect, an odds-column shift.

Rohwer and Hummelchen say this of the Bardia attack:

2-3 Jan Mediterranean

British attack on Bardia which is encircled. After harassing fire from the British monitor Terror and several gunboats on 2 Jan, Admiral Cunningham carries out a heavy coastal shelling early on 3 Jan with the battleships Warspite, Valiant and Barham and seven destroyers, while aircraft from the Illustrious act as artillery spotters. On 5 Jan the remains of the Italian garrison capitulate.

This attack happens the same Europa turn as Operation Excess, involving large convoy operations to both Malta and Greece, and a bombardment of the Dodecanese, yet the Royal Navy can still commit three battleships to fire support missions.

During the Tobruk assault, we find the entry:

21-22 Jan Mediterranean

After the shelling of Tobruk and its military installations by the British monitor Terror, the gunboats Aphis and Ladybird and the Australian destroyers Stuart, Vampire and Voyager, the 6th Australian Div breaks into the fortress which is occupied on 22 Jan. 25000 Italian troops are taken prisoner. In the harbour the old cruiser San Giorgio is scuttled.

This is obviously not as big a naval operation as at Bardia, but was it possibly enough to shift an odds column? If the attack had progressed more slowly, would not heavier units have been back to attempt to turn an AS into a DR?

Now skip to the Persian Gulf. There was little opportunity to actually use naval gunfire in the suppression of the Iraqi revolt, but there were plenty of naval elements (carrier Hermes, cruisers Emerald, Enterprise, Leander, three sloops, one gunboat) ready to fire during the landing at Basra if the Iraqis would have been rash enough to deploy in range. (It was another half century before the Iraqis tried that one.) The fact that the navy didn't actually get to fire very much is immaterial. From a resource allocation standpoint, they were committed.

Next naval snapshot, Syria. Jason says "a couple of cruisers and some destroyers provided intermittent gunfire support between duels with French super-destroyers." Six cruisers, Jason. Count `em. Ajax, Coventry, Leander, Naiad, Perth, Phoebe, and twelve destroyers. Four points of support allows a column shift against a typical Vichy coastal position of two regiments.

Not that it should show up in Europa, but naval gunfire was particularly effective in Lebanon because the coastal ridges and valleys run east and west, perpendicular to the coast. The naval guns could fire up the valleys, denying the Vichy French the benefits of reverse slopes that were helping protect them from regular artillery fire.

Finally, Jason's conclusion that gunfire from the British Navy in the Levant campaign could not have been worth much because Brigadier General Playfair and the Australian official historian don't dwell on it seems to me a bit shaky.

Just to prove I'm not too fanatic, I will point out an example of gunfire support that even I will gladly ignore. Consider the following 1941 entry from Rohwer and Hummelchen:

10-20 April Mediterranean

Units of the Mediterranean Fleet are employed to cover and support the withdrawal of the British Eighth Army in Cyrenaica between Tobruk and the Egyptian frontier. In the nights 9-10 Apr and 10-11 Apr the gunboats Aphis and Gnat shell Bomba and Gazala. On 12 Apr six destroyers, covered by the Ajax, Orion and Perth, make a sortie along the coast as far as Ras et Tin. On 13 Apr the destroyers Griffin and Stuart and the gunboat Gnat support operations near Sollum. On 15 Apr the British cruiser Gloucester and the destroyer Hasty bombard targets between Fort Capuzzo and Bardia and the gunboat Ladybird bombards the airfield at Gazala. On 18 Apr Gloucester and Ladybird again shell targets near Bardia and Sollum. On 19 Apr the destroyers Stuart, Voyager and Waterhen and the AA cruiser Coventry set out from Alexandria with the transport Glengyle and carry out a commando raid against Bardia on the morning of 20 Apr.

Lots of different ships are involved here, but they are supporting dispersed minor operations, mainly covering a withdrawal-probably not a conceivable Europa naval mission.

It is easy to invent other instances of possible naval gunfire support. How about a counterattack against a German invasion of Cyprus? It's outside of easy German air attack. How about an Axis enclave at Tobruk or Benghazi with air superiority won by the Allies (as in Ben Knight's game of TEM #18)? What if the Syria campaign continues longer than it did historically? What if the attack on the frontier garrison Jan 142 fails with an AS and another attack is needed Jan II? Suppose that, at the Gazala battles, the XIII Corps is cut off along the coast and has to attack out to meet a relief force. It is within the realm of possibility that a navy squadron would attempt to support an attack like that, even in the face of Axis air power. Naval gunfire is a plausible "reality" in any of these situations. 

Jason concludes, "The Allied player should only get a couple of turns per year of NGS and it should probably be no more than a point or two." I'll stand by the original. The Allies should get a very limited amount of naval gunfire available every turn if they are willing to risk it. Four points through 1941, two points after that.

There might be several specific times when the RN could not respond to a reasonable army request for support. These might be during the transfer to Greece (Operation LusTm), the actual Crete battle, and several of the big Malta resupply operations. These would be exceptions to the general situation, however-there was no annual quota on gunfire support. SF needs the quota system because there is no effective Luftwaffe to limit overuse of naval units. In 1941 and 1942 that shouldn't be the case.

If the British use naval gunfire support too freely, the problem is that the VP penalties for naval hits are too low, or that the players ignore VPs. If you feel the Allies get too much support, but you still like the general idea of "Cunningham's Pond," either:

• limit naval gunfire to ten or more hexes from any airfield occupied by a German (not just Axis) air unit, or
• raise the VP award for Axis bits on naval gunfire markers to a higher rate, say 5 VPs.

Both of these solutions avoid the problem of quotas. If a player ignores victory points, the first solution is obviously the correct choice; the higher VP rate is subtler and causes players to make decisions, which is the real purpose of a game.

Don't tell anybody, but the real glitch in "Cunningham's Pond" might be in the bombing of naval transport, a rule innocently copied verbatim from Balkan Front, perhaps without enough thought and testing-it can make it awfully hard to put reinforcements into Tobruk.

Attacker Stopped

Unlike Jason, I actually am rather fond of the AS result. Jason says that attackers usually suffered at least some type of losses in a battle. He's right as far as he goes, but are the losses always enough to justify elimination of units at Europa's scale? I think the AS result nicely models an attempted attack that has met obvious tactical setbacks but, having recognized these problems, the local commanders have called off the "advance" before taking crippling losses. This can be frustrating for a player if the AS result is for a particularly vital attack in which you would be glad to sacrifice the attacking force for some kind of dynamic result. However, what if the corps commanders aren't so anxious to sacrifice their men in what they realize is a pointless attack? If they are good, they can see what is happening after initial attacks and can convince Army Group HQ (the player) that an AH or AE is in the making and to stop before that happens.

There are plenty of examples of AS results throughout the war, possibly including the attempted counterattack by the French 36me DCR and 36me DIM against the Meuse bridgehead mentioned in the same "Counterbattery." And the May II 42 attack on Bir Hacheim should also qualify. In "Europa as History--Battle for Rome" I will have the Free French attack on Siena resulting in an AS. One reason you do not find a lot of historical AS examples is that those attacks don't usually make very good reading. How many people out there even knew the Free French attacked Siena? Not me.

Now before I start sounding like a pillar of Europa conservatism, let me quickly say that I agree with many of Jason's other points, such as attacker casualties and the attractiveness of a two-dice CRT. When I've worked on various "Europa as History" pieces in the magazine, I have sorely wanted an added type of attrition result, whether an AX result or something similar. What about defender losses, but without the loss of the hex?

Liberalized Infantry Movement

Jason claims that Duane Romfoe's infantry exploit (TEM #10) doesn't work because it motivates infantry to conduct shallow raids. I pointed this out in TEM #13 and suggested that infantry not be allowed to exploit if it suffered any adverse combat result (AS, AR, AH, AE), but I will agree that possibly this limitation is not enough. Another possibility that has the benefit of not requiring any markers for "adversely affected units" is to simply prohibit a "minimum move" in the exploitation phase. That is, do not allow units to enter even a single hex unless they have the movement points to do so.

For a 6 Movement Allowance Inf XX this effectively prohibits an exploitation from one ZOC to another. It prohibits a withdrawal from the attack hex into anything other than clear terrain or road. An 8 Movement Allowance Inf XX can exploit into a clear terrain hex (or use a road) from one ZOC to another, but I'm not convinced that semi-motorized infantry shouldn't have that limited exploitation capability anyway. This limitation on minimum moves in the exploitation phase helps curb the infantry raider phenomenon, although it may not wipe it out entirely. I haven't seen the other unopposed movement rules Jason mentioned, so I can't comment on them.

The smoke having cleared for now, we relax until the next errant spotting round from Battery Long explodes nearby.

And one final note. Lest my vituperative ranting about Jason's constructive criticism make anyone hesitate to blast any of my material TEM has published, let me assure you that I only give Jason the business on naval gunfire because we are co-assistant editors and have corresponded in the past. There are plenty of skeletons in the closets of the scenarios and articles I've done. Blast away! You won't get the same treatment as Jason.