Ghost of Issue Present

Swinging southwest from the steppes, let's take a look-see at the searing sands of the Sahara. Yesss? As part of my research for Second Front, I've been working on the Italian order of battle for all of World War II, and I've come up with a few new items for War In the Desert / Western Desert.

TANKS FOR THE TAKING

Those 0-8 Italian light tank battalions have always bothered me. They're nearly worthless and require a special rule, to boot. Things would be better if they weren't there. Well, they don't have to be. Italian battalions (battaglioni) were on paper either independent or under regiments (reggimenti), but in practice were often organized in groups (raggrupamenti), somewhat similar in concept to US task forces.

On 29 August 1940, the Italians formed an armored command for all tanks in North Africa (the Commando carri armati della Libia) , under which were the (independent) light tank battalions and the two effectively independent medium tank battalions of the 4th Tank Regiment. These battalions were organized into the 1st and 2nd Tank Groups plus two battalions. While these two groups in practice weren't very cohesive, for Europa purposes they provide excellent headquarters into which we can collect the lights.

At the same time, I want to meddle with the 4th Tank Regiment. At 1-6, it is an extremely weak unit, mostly because one of its battalions had most of its tanks in for repair at the start of the game. Well, we don't track - and don't need to track - tank breakdowns and repairs elsewhere in Europa or elsewhere in WitD/WD for that matter).

Under the normal course of affairs, the tanks would have been repaired and sent back, except that the British came screaming through Cyrenaica in the meantime. (Similarly, British 7th Armoured Division happened to be taking a powder and getting its tanks repaired when Rommel came screaming through Cyrenaica the other way.) What I propose is to bring the 4th into line with the rest of the Italian medium tanks in WitD/WD, by breaking it into its two battalions.

So, here goes: From the initial forces on the Axis order of battle, delete the seven 0-8 Lt Tank 11 (9 L, 20 L, 21 L, 60 L, 61 L, 62 L, 63 Q and the 1-6 Tank Ill (4 1) and add:

1-8 Lt Tank X 1 at 19:0226 1-8 Lt Tank X 2 at 19:0526 1-6 Lt Tank 11 1 M at Gazala, 18:4519 1-6 Lt Tank 11 2 M at 19:0726

New WitD/WD Italian Counters:

Also, on Feb I 41, delete the three 0-8 Lt Tank II (4 L, 5 L, 11 L) reinforcements and receive one Italian armor replacement instead.

Finally, delete Rule 28A4, as it is no longer applicable. All this is EXPERIMENTAL, but it looks pretty good to me.

TRACKS AND TREADS

All three Italian armored divisions appear as reinforcements at cadre strength. The reason for this was that the Italians shipped the divisions piecemeal and didn't always send the entire division. The more I look at this, the more I think it isn't completely right.

The 131st (Oct I 42) is definitely shipped over as a cadre. The 133rd (Feb I 42) suffered losses en route to North Africa, so it seems better to have it appear in Europe at full strength and risk the Malta Table: on Feb I 42 change 3-8 Arm Cadre 133 to 7-5-8 Arm XX 133. The 132nd I'm uncertain about. I had to leave my best reference source on North Africa in Illinois when I moved to Massachusetts, as Frank Chadwick's brain proved to be firmly attached to his body. It appears, however, to have assembled for operations in North Africa fairly quickly. What I'm inclined to do now is to delete the 3-8 Arm Cadre 132 on Feb I 41, when it began arriving in North Africa, and add the 7-5-8 Arm XX 132 on Mar I 41.

Also, I see no outstanding reason to prevent the Italian armored divisions from breaking down into their regiments. Here's how that goes:

7-5-8 Arm XX 131 132 133
8 Arm XX HQ 131 132 133
4-2-8 Arm III 31 132 133
2-10 Mot III 5 Bers 8 Bers12 Bers

New WitD/WD Italian Counters:

3 x 8 Arm HQ 131, 132, 133 3 x 4-2-8 Tank Ill 31, 132, 133 3 x 2-10 Mot III 5 Bers, 8 Bers, 12 Bers

Rounding out the Italian combat/motorized forces in the desert are the two motorized divisions, the 101st and 102nd. The 102nd had the misfortune to arrive in Africa when the supply services were desperately in need of trucks, so the 102nd was partially clemotorized. (I believe this was supposed to be temporary, but you know how that goes. Once the trucks got into the field in other hands, it probably became impossible to get them back.) Well, I see nothing wrong with leaving the clemotorization decision up to the player.

When the Axis player receives an Italian 5-8 Mot XX (Feb I 41 and Sep I 41), he can take A as a motorized division or he can take 4 as a 5-8 infantry division and increase his SMP total by 5 SMPs. To implement this in the game, change the 5-8 Inf XX 102 received on Feb 141 to 5-8 Mot XX 102, reduce the Axis SMP total on Mar I 41 from 25 to 20, and have a 5-8 Int XX 101 handy for the 5-8 Mot XX 101 on Sep I 41.

New WitD/WD Italian Counters:

Finally, let's add the breakdowns for these two divisions. Doing so will let us show them in the game at their actual 3 RE size, rather than at the 2 RE size of the rest of the Italian divisions. Amend Rule 3E accordingly. (Note: If you don't bother with the breakdowns, then don't bother with the 3 RE business, either, as this has the potential to penalize them too much. For example, being stuck with a 3 RE unit you can't break down means you can't ship it to a minor port.)

5-8 Mot XX 101 102
8 Mot XX HQ 101 102
1-8 Mot III 65 61
1-8 Mot III 66 62
2-10 Mot III 9 Bers 7 Bers

5-8 Inf XX 101 102

8 Inf XX HQ 101 102
1-8 Inf III 65 61
1-8 Inf III 66 62
2-8 Inf III 9 Bers 7 Bers

New WitD/WD Italian Counters:

2 x 8 Mot XX HQ 101, 102
4 x 1-8 Mot III 61,62,65,66
2 x 2-10 Mot III 7 Bers, 9 Bers;
4 x 1-8 Inf III 61,62,65,66
2 x 2-8 Inf III 7 Bers, 9 Bers

All this, of course, is OPTIONAL.

ENGINEERS AND FORTS

It looks like I missed a couple of Guastatori battalions, as the Italians had cleverly concealed them from me by putting them inside a couple of divisions. During 1941, the Italians converted a handful of infantry divisions to "assault and landing divisions." In essence, these divisions got some combined operations training, in case they were used against Malta, and some specialist units.

In particular, the 1st and 4th Divisions picked up Guastatori battalions. In Europa terms, these battalions should be independent of the divisions: On Nov II 42, add 1-8 AsIt Eng II (1 G) to the Axis reinforcements. Add 1-8 AsIt Eng II (11 G) to the Italian 1942 Special Forces Pool.

New WitD/WD Italian Counters

2x 1-8 Asft Eng II 1G,11G

More Oops. It seems Tripoli was (partially) fortified before the war. I missed this fact when doing Western Desert and Torch, even though one of my Italian sources lists "piazzaforte Tripoli" along with "piazzaforte Tobruch." Place a fort counter at Tripoli (18:0122) at the start of the game.

Now that Dave Hughes has found the British pioneers (see TEN #6) in the desert and elsewhere, we're on the verge of losing that annoying divisional engineer rule. If I could just dig up some more engineers for the Axis, we could drop the rule entirely.

Well, I've had no luck so far, so I'm going to fudge it. Let's assume that enough German and Italian engineer assets are present to justify a counter by the summer of 1941: Add a German Army 0-8 Eng III (Afr) as a Jul II 41 reinforcement. Delete the German 1-8 Eng III (Afr) from the Dec I 42 reinforcements and instead convert the 0-8 to the 1-8 on this turn. Use Dave Hughes' material on the pioneer groups from TEN#6, and drop Rule 32D3 (Divisional Engineers).

New WitD/WD German Counter

1 x 0-8 Eng III Afr

All this, except the Tripoli fort, is OPTIONAL.

Ghost of Issue Future

Are fortified hexside counters on their way out? Why are motorized infantry units halved when attacking into swamps and forests? Will the next issue's column answer these questions and more? Will the next issue's column add yet more unprinted counters?!? Beats me, but stay tuned and we'll have some more fun.