Note:D6 is the junction on the campaign map at which the armies of Elsworth and Simon met. This was the first battle in the famous PACMAN campaign as described in an earlier issue of the REVIEW. The forces of Simon (in particular, a force known to its owner as the Hammer of Jahweh) had attacked with a strength of 1000 AP my force of 1000 AP. The attacking troops had 90 AMP's, while mine had only 60. The result of my reduced supply allocation was that each of my units had a 30% chance of running out of ammunition, whereas each of Wally's had only a 20% chance of this happening (see the article in the June, REVIEW... a dice roll is added to the AMP's, and, in this case, Wally's proxy threw 05, a total of 95 and I threw 17, for a total of 76. Thus Wally's troops fell into the 81- to-110 range, and mine, unfortunately, into the 01-to-80 range). We ran the game as a 1/300 scale WW II battle using the FIREFLY 1:1 rules. These are a fairly ordinary but straightforward set derived from the CHALLENGER ULTRA MODERN, and ultimately, from ideas pioneered in the WRG set. The game was made especially interesting by keeping the forces small and setting it in the 1941 Western Desert. The weapons in this period of the war were much less lethal in the A/T role allowing a game of considerable movement to develop. The scale of the rules is 1mm to 2 meters so that effective range for a 2 pdr A/T gun is somewhat less than 500mm (20 inches) ... quite close on a table measuring 2 meters by 1.5 meters. The terrain consisted of many single contour undulations creating a series of three parallel valleys running diagonally across the table. Roughly on the center line and in the center of each half of the table (lengthwise) there were small Italian colonial settlements. Order of Battle British Group NQ Radio equipped coax" vehicle Mixed Tank Squadron HQ 2 x Matilda II 1st Platoon 3 x Matilda II 2nd Platoon 5 x A13 (early 2pdr Cruiser) Motorized Rifle Coy HQ Radio equipped truck Rifle Platoon3 1/2 rifle sections In trucks A/T Platoon 2 x 2pdr. Universal Carriers and 1 x 25pdr In Quad Support Platoon 2 a 3' mortar. trucks and 2 x MMGs trucks Off-table Artillery 1 battery. 1 x 25pdr and Forward Observation Officer German Group NQ Radio equipped halftrack Mixed Tank Squadron HQ 1 x pzIV and 1 x pz III 1st Platoon 3 x pzIV 2nd Platoon 3 x pzIV 3rd Platoon 3 x pzIV Italians: 2 x M11/39 and 2 s M13/40 Armored Infantry HQ Radio equipped halftrock Rifle Platoon 3 -1/2 rifle sect and halftracks A/T Platoon 2 a 37mm Pak. and Halftracks Support Plateon 2 x 81mm mortar. halftrecks and 2 x MMG halftracks Off-table Artillery: 1 battery 6 X 105mm. Note: All PzIV had 75mm L24 guns. all PzIII had 50mm L42 guns I think my plan should have worked. Indeed, I had the Afrika Corps just where I wanted it by the end of Phase 2 on the map. The Afrika Corps infantry on my left were pinned down by MMG, mortar and artillery fire. Their tanks were threatened to the front by relatively impervious Matildas and to the flank by fast A13 Cruisers. We opened up with our 2 pdrs and a positive hall of fire deluged the Afrika Corps tanks. Several were neutralized with near misses and one was destroyed. The neutralized ones would be easy meat on the next bound. Then we checked on the ammunition supply position. In rapid succession, three of my five Matildas and two of the five A13's showed out. Disasterl Clearly, I would have to retreat, and what was more, to Jo this with only the minimum of covering fire. The only answer was to sacrifice my A/T platoon and support platoon to provide a rearguard while I extracted the rifle platoon and crippled tank platoons. These retreated as shown by the dotted line (- - -- - -) on the map. Afrika Corps losses were only a few infantry and one PzIII. I lost the rearguard. Terrible, but a very interesting game. The other players said how much interest was added by the limited ammo rule. It stopped all the hopeless long range shooting which does nothing but slow the game down. One was inclined to move to a good position and then go only for good shots. Unfortunately, my dice rolling let me down... with a crash. In campaign terms, I have immediately launched a counterattack with a fresh force against Wally's depleted force. No doubt he will report on the outcome. Back to PW Review August 1988 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1988 Wally Simon This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com