Gazala To Tobruk - Spring 1942 v 1.0
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Panzer General II Scenario


Background
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PG2 comes with an fairly accurate and large map of the Gazala - Tobruk area.  However, it is hardly utilised in the main game; in fact the Cauldron scenario looks so strange with just a few units fighting it out in the middle of the map, I can't help feel that SSI might have tried to do this scenario and gave up!

Seeing this I thought that it would be feasible to model the battles of Gazala, the Cauldron and Tobruk (26 May - 21 June 1942).  It's a big, complex battle, but achievable if units are strictly kept to Brigade level.  The scale is about 1.5 miles per hex.

The Battle
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After the initial Allied successes in Africa during 1941, Rommel appeared on the scene at Tripoli and immediately launched a counter attack.  The Allies were toppled back, eventually forming a "line" at Ain el Gazala, 35 miles to the west of Tobruk.  Due to the distances involved, the "line" was in fact a series of brigade sized fortified boxes running from Gazala in the north to the old fort of Bir Hacheim some 40 miles to the south.

The Allies had not yet come to terms with how to effectively conduct tank warfare, and thought that the Germans would spend themselves on the heavily defended boxes WW1 style.  Nothing could be further from Rommel's mind.  He divided his army into two elements.  Along the Gazala line, he placed a pinning force, made up mainly of poorly equipped and demoralised Italian infantry divisions.  To the south, around Bir Hacheim, he placed an elite mechanised force consisting of 2 Panzer Divisions (the 21st and the 15th), known as the Deutchshe Afrika Korps - the DAK; a Motorised Infantry Division (the 90th Light); and support from the best Italian unit, the Ariete Armoured Division, and an average mechanised infantry division, Trieste.

Rommel's plan was to avoid frontal assault of the Allied front line boxes, take Bir Hacheim, then cause maximum disruption to the Allied rear echelon whilst moving in on Tobruk, in short - Blitzkrieg.

The battle can be divided into 3 elements; breaking the Gazala line, the Cauldron (the fighting in the rear) and the battle for Tobruk.  Initially all went well for the Axis, and the Afrika Korps played havoc with the Allies who insisted on sending in poorly coordinated counter attacks which were mercilessly eliminated.  

The Allies were too spread out over the entire area and were destroyed piecemeal. Even the famed Desert Rats, the 7th Armoured Division, who guarded the southern flank  were helpless to impede the German advance.  In reserve, around the box known as "Knightbridge", so called because it was held by the 201st Guards Brigade (whose officers peace time dwellings tended to be in the Knightsbridge area of London), was the slightly more centralised and effective 1st Armoured Division.  The Allied Divisions on the Gazala line (1st South African and 50th Infantry) were not effectively pinned by the Italians, but were non motorised and supported by slow moving Matilda and Valantine based Army Tank Brigades (1st and 32nd).  As a consequence they played little part in stopping the DAKs initial attack.  The routing of the reserves, supply and headquarters units became humiliatingly known as the "Gazala Gallop".

After the DAK had broken through the initial Allied lines, Rommel realised that he had significantly underestimated the strength of the 8th Army.  Much time was spent picking off inidividual units such as 150th Brigade, and defeating more significant Allied counterattacks into the Cauldron.  Also, the Italian attack on Bir Hacheim (by the Trieste and Ariete) had been unsuccessful.  The garrison there was the 1st Free French Brigade, consisting of Free French, French Foreign Legionaires, strong AA and Anti Tank defenses, and a Jewish battalion, who, for obvious reasons, were not keen on surrendering.

Rommel, who considered the fight at Bir Hacheim to be his hardest in Africa, turned the DAK around and sent them to the fortress to finish the job.  This they did, but on June 10 - a full 2 weeks after the start of the battle.  To his credit, Rommel ignored Hitler's demand to execute the Jewish contingent, and handed them over to the Italians who treated them as normal prisoners of war.

The lost time spent reducing Bir Hacheim allowed the Allies to recover from the initial assault and counterattack in a more coordinated fashion.  Rommel's disciplined push towards Tobruk began to fragment in to a number of mini battles, most noteworthy of which were the battles around the "Knightsbridge" box on the road to Acroma.  

After the fall of "Knightsbridge", the 8th Army went into full retreat, pulling out of Gazala in the process, and falling back to Tobruk.  The Axis forces surrounded the Tobruk perimeter and pushed further East to deal with late Indian reinforcements.  Once repulsed, the coup de grace was fittingly completed by the DAK itself, despite a strong antitank defensive line.

This was Rommel's greatest victory, routing a larger, better equipped enemy.  On June 22nd, Hitler promoted him to Field Marshal, Churchill's Government faced a vote of confidence and the road to Egypt was now open.

The Scenario
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Whilst I have endeavoured to model these battles reasonably accurately, a number of compromises have had to be made.  Please note:

1.  There is no attempt to be accurate with the air units - to be honest due to the lack of research material.  What you should get is the impression that no one side really had mastery of the air.  The Allies had slightly more fighters, and the Germans had slightly better ones.

2.  If you want a game reasonably close to the real thing, play the Axis. The slightly ropey AI in PG2 means that the general incompetence of the Allied leadership is replicated well and their insistence on sending in unsupported attacks comes over nicely.  If you play the Allies, the AI is no Rommel, and noticeably tardy at Blitzkrieg.  The progress of the battle in no way looks like the real thing, and it should be viewed as fighting a not very competent enemy commander,  In other words the game is winnable either way.

3.  The poor performance of the Italian Infantry Divisions is modelled by their representation as only one infantry unit and one artillery unit each.

4.  The Free French performance at Bir Hacheim has been difficult to model, as there is no way to increase their entrenchment value at the beginning - and they are the first to get hit.  To compensate, I have given them slightly more in the way of support units (AA, Anti-tank and Artillery), and plenty of experience.  This done, they only last 2-3 days after a well coordinated attack - so don't expect history to repeat itself - unless, of course, you decide to bypass them!

5.  The Axis forces get very little in terms of prestige - reflecting the lack of supplies and reinforcements, so seeing your DAK run out of gas is a strong likelihood.

6.  Rommel took 25 days to take Tobruk (and every way you look at it, this was a Brilliant Victory).  I give you 10 days.  The reason is three-fold.  Firstly, the AI fights a poorer battle than the Allied generals.  Secondly, Rommel's lack of supply slowed him down far more than I can model in the game.  Thirdly, fog of war played a huge part in this battle - much more so than is reflected in the game.

The Map
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I've used the full Tobruk map.  Unfortunately, you lose the names of places with User Scenario's, so here are the key locations:

1,5 - City - Gazala
9,23 - Rough - Bir Haichem
11,17 - Sand - 150th Brigade Box
18,17 - Rough - Knightsbridge
23,11 - City  - Acroma
30,21 - City - El Adem
33,8 - Port - Tobruk

Finally, I can't figure out how to deal with the ghost units which occasionally appear - any solutions are welcome.  Any views and suggestions for improving the scenario are also welcome.  Any ideas on how to hack the entrenchment levels at the beginning of the game, and place names would be much appreciated as well.

Richard Huggins

Email - richard@huggins.demon.co.uk.

11/10/98









