Year Battle Victors 1936 Toledo Nationalists 1936/9 Madrid Nationalists 1936/7 Corunna Road Stalemate 1937 Jarama River Nationalists 1937 Brunete Nationalists 1937 Malaga Nationalists 1937 Guadalajara Republicans 1937 Bilbao Nationalists 1937 Santander Nationalists 1937 Saragossa Nationalists 1937 Gijon Nationalists 1937/8 Teruel Nationalists 1938 Vinaroz Republicans 1938 Ebro River Nationalists 1938/9 Barcelona Nationalists Wargaming Aspects The Spanish Civil War produced a queer blend of relatively ancient and modern weapons as, desperate for any armaments both sides, particularly the Republicans, used old weapons of World War 1. For this reason the Spanish Civil War represents an elastic, free and easy sort of wargaming involving almost any troops and equipment ranging from 1914 to 1939. The almost unique manner in which other countries intervened in this struggle makes for very variable qualities of troops and their ability. Franco's trained troops from Africa; the German Condor Legion and possibly the Communist International Brigades could reasonably be classified as "elite" troops. Franco's Italian Allies, although well-equipped and trained troops, did not show up well and cannot rate higher than "average" classification. The Republican Militia were poorly trained but of high morale and could therefore justify a rating higher than "below average". This conflict presents the wargamer with many intriguing facets such as a great diversity of equipment causing queer mixtures of tanks, guns and aircraft, thus allaying the boredom of making and painting large numbers of the same piece of equipment. The relative scarcity of tanks means that even a single armoured vehicle on the wargames table can make a great difference to the outcome of battle. Therefore, there must be ample facilities for the wargamer lacking that single tank to be able to put it out of action, if necessary by an individual act of bravery with a petrol bomb or bundles of hand grenades. It is not beyond the ingenuity of the wargamer to formulate rules to cover such actions, which can introduce an interesting blend of Individual Wargaming to routine tabletop battles. With the possible exception of the elite troops mentioned earlier, morale probably fluctuated from high to low, without any intermediate classification. Thus, troops held on until the last minute before breaking and fleeing, unlikely to return. Back to Table of Contents -- Lone Warrior #136 Back to Lone Warrior List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2001 by Solo Wargamers Association. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com