@mcmeeple said in AA50 Objective Trackers:
move
Thanks for this great idea and design, I have printed and laminated them all to use with our next game!
1941 AA50 French West Africa, French Madagascar and Italian East Africa- Axis?
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…or Risk :-D
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LOL! :-D
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Considering that the US was supplying French North Africa with food and clothing (see Murphy-Weygand Agreement), the Duke of Aosta surrendered in Italian East Africa on 18 May 1941, and Madagascar had no effective communication with any part of Europe or Vichy France, I have no problems whatsoever with those territories not being allocated to the Axis. The last main Italian naval base on the Red Sea was Massawa which was captured April 8, 1941. I have always assumed that A&A, in all of its editions, started with Operation Barbarossa in June of 1941. At that point, Italian East Africa was no longer a factor. If you do wish to add it, then it would be reasonable to give the USSR one free building turn before any German attack, along with a movement turn, and give the British additonal land, naval, and air forces to continue the offensive in Ethiopia.
I understand that you wish to skew the game to the Axis as much as possible, and make it as difficult as possible for the Allies to have a chance to win.
Timeover51, I have a deep abiding respect for you as a historian. I have a question, I am reading Italian East Africa, Gondar, did not surrender until Nov, 1941; I have copied what I am reading, for your convience. Is this in error?
Also, I had read of captured papers that out line Japanese intentions on occupation of Madagascar, allowing deployment into Africa and South America? The same article, indicates, this was the movtivation for the ops that had Allies moving on Madagascar in 42?**Italian last stands
In spite of the Duke of Aosta’s surrender at Amba Alagi on 18 May 1941, some Italian forces continued to hold out. The port city of Assab and the strongholds of Gondar and Jimma remained under Italian control. Both Gondar and Jimma started with garrisons of roughly 40,000 men.[78][edit] Operation Chronometer
On 10 June, Operation Chronometer was launched and a battalion from the Indian Army was landed at Assab, the last Italian-held harbour on the Red Sea.[79] By 11 June, Assab had fallen. On 13 June, two days after the fall, the Indian trawler “Parvati” became the last naval casualty of the campaign when it struck a magnetic mine near Assab.[edit] Jimma
An Italian force under General Pietro Gazzera, the Governor of Galla-Sidama and the new acting Viceroy and Governor-General of Italian East Africa, continued to resist at Jimma in southwest Ethiopia. Gazzera had replaced the Duke of Aosta as Viceroy and Governor-General of Italian East Africa.[78]However, even before Cunningham moved against him, Gazzera was faced with a growing irregular force of Ethiopian patriots (or Arbegnoch). Many of his units started to melt away. His colonial troops were especially prone to defection. On 21 June 1941, Gazzera abandoned Jimma where about 15,000 of what was left of his command surrendered. On July 3, Gazzera and his last 7,000 men surrendered[80] when they were cut off by Belgian Major-General Auguste-Éduard Gilliaert, the commander of the Free Belgian Forces in East Africa.
On 28 September, the 3000 man garrison of Wolchefit Pass surrendered to the King’s African Rifles. [81]
[edit] Gondar
General Nasi and his last troops receive military honors at Gondar, November 1941.Main article: Battle of Gondar
The force at Gondar, under General Guglielmo Nasi, the acting Governor of Amhara, held out for almost seven months. Gondar was the capital of Begemder Province in northwest Ethiopia, about 120 miles (190 km) west of Amba Alagi. After General Gazzera surrendered, Nasi became the new acting Viceroy and Governor-General of Italian East Africa. But, like Gazzera, Nasi faced not just conventional forces (from Platt’s command), but also an ever increasing force of Ethiopian patriots.While the Italian Royal Air Force (Regia Aeronautica) in East Africa had been worn down quickly by a lop-sided war of attrition, the Italian pilots held on to the bitter end. On 24 October 1941, the last Italian aircraft of the campaign was shot down.[9]
On 27 November 1941 General Nasi and his last 23,500 men surrendered Gondar[82] to a combined force of British and Commonwealth troops and a force of Ethiopians. The Italians received full military honors.**
No, its not my intentions that an unbalanced Axis should win.
I was merely curious about the design of AA50 and looking forward to some fun with an Africian campaign being added, when Italy was added to AA50. It didn’t happen and Larry maybe thought complexity was increasing beyond the scope of his game. -
i do see the fuss about how italian africa is british.
No offense but really 1 teritory or even lets say 2 madagascar and italian africa for 60 ipc worth of places no offense but who will do that.I also agree upon a few things if this game was historically correct and qw played this game how the real war went we would have a problem russia and usa woukld unally the axis and allow france and gb have no problem. @timerover51:
Considering that the US was supplying French North Africa with food and clothing (see Murphy-Weygand Agreement), the Duke of Aosta surrendered in Italian East Africa on 18 May 1941, and Madagascar had no effective communication with any part of Europe or Vichy France, I have no problems whatsoever with those territories not being allocated to the Axis. The last main Italian naval base on the Red Sea was Massawa which was captured April 8, 1941. I have always assumed that A&A, in all of its editions, started with Operation Barbarossa in June of 1941. At that point, Italian East Africa was no longer a factor. If you do wish to add it, then it would be reasonable to give the USSR one free building turn before any German attack, along with a movement turn, and give the British additonal land, naval, and air forces to continue the offensive in Ethiopia.
I understand that you wish to skew the game to the Axis as much as possible, and make it as difficult as possible for the Allies to have a chance to win.
It is not skweing the game at all and i can see some house rules coming along but i like being the allies expecially russia
because i just love playing them. It will not kill the game for the allies though what i would do is if the italains did get these territories and lets say 1 infantry in madagascar and 1-2 inf and 1 artillery in italian africa. You can give gb 10-15 ipcs to place were ever in africa only and spare change disappears but 1 tank can only b built. I see no problem with italy having those things, it would make africa more then a 1 front duel wouldn’t you think? -
timeover51,
Thanks kindly, for the reference and explanation. This illuminates the frame, it provided, additional insight, and possibly why, Larry Harris did not include the Africian campaign in his 1941 setup. It appeared to myself, many ops were in progress, late in 1941 Africa. I was seeing action. I did not complete the loop and visualize strategic implication. I was distracted. The mere possiblility, of an additional campaign, with a gaming chance to change the end result.
It does make sense, Italian forces bottled up, were out of position to threaten breakout and Link to Rommel. Therefore, not a Strategic consideration.
OK back to basics. -
Basically, I use the criteria of is the unit or force capable of offensive operations in a manner which would influence the war. If a force cannot do that, then I do not worry about them, hence, I did no consider the Italian holdouts. Any military campaign in Africa, even today, is going to be severely hampered by the lack of any kind of good communications network of roads and rail. That still does not exist, and probably will not. You also have to deal with extremes in terrain and temperature, and the lack of useful infrastructure besides roads.
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I can see africa an amazing nice front which italians do not need an ipc but the british need 1 (exception of libya)
close your eyes and see africa in a war to get madagascar to sea land in north africa to try to get sudan italian units reforcing islands for japan because they can or italians sendign men to middle east from east africa think of it all africa will b a bunch of wars and africa willb huge fighting ground like the pacific in ww2 and the russian front in ww2 against germany
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I can see africa an amazing nice front which italians do not need an ipc but the british need 1 (exception of libya)
close your eyes and see africa in a war to get madagascar to sea land in north africa to try to get sudan italian units reforcing islands for japan because they can or italians sendign men to middle east from east africa think of it all africa will b a bunch of wars and africa willb huge fighting ground like the pacific in ww2 and the russian front in ww2 against germany
Yep, this was the intent, a new battleground. I think the Italians may have been surrounded in east Africa, but what if Rommel had been given reinforcements, like many of us do when we land additional forces to hit Egypt. Then the Italian East Aftrica campaign has linking possiblities and strategic consequences. Maybe I gave up to early with this point.
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If you allow for the scaling factor in the game, i.e. each tank and infantry unit represents several divisions, the limited port facitilies in Italian North Africa, Tripoli (the primary port), Benghazi and Tobruk (when available and subject to enemy attack and the need to rebuild them a couple of times) could support 1 German Tank and 1 German infantry unit and 1 Italian Tank and 2 Italian infantry units in an attack on Egypt. Anything beyond that represents units that players use in the game, but could not have been supplied in actuality.
Then you still have to deal with the extreme lack of internal communications in Africa, even today. Africa is also much smaller on the map board in relation to Europe than it should be, which distorts what can be done in the game verses in reality.
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If you allow for the scaling factor in the game, i.e. each tank and infantry unit represents several divisions, the limited port facitilies in Italian North Africa, Tripoli (the primary port), Benghazi and Tobruk (when available and subject to enemy attack and the need to rebuild them a couple of times) could support 1 German Tank and 1 German infantry unit and 1 Italian Tank and 2 Italian infantry units in an attack on Egypt. Anything beyond that represents units that players use in the game, but could not have been supplied in actuality.
Then you still have to deal with the extreme lack of internal communications in Africa, even today. Africa is also much smaller on the map board in relation to Europe than it should be, which distorts what can be done in the game verses in reality.
Agreed, since I have drawn the AA50 PlayersAid map several times, I am well versed in the projection’s distortion of Europe vs Africa. I also understand unit scale and logistics. This does not deflect, the game strategy of taking Egypt as the Axis Italian/German player. The invasion of Egypt is a must move IMHO. Now in AA50, Italy is making this invasion, where as in the past it was Germany. The surrounded Italian forces could be relieved in our games, in historical context, I appreciate, it wasn’t going to happen.
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Larry has stated many times that the units don’t generally fit standard military models for classic formations (divisions, corps, army) and in some cases these are corps and others they are armies. They are not the same in every case, allowing for the corps in Africa to be symbolized as perhaps 2-3 units, while in the Soviet union one infantry may represent an army ( 3-5 corps).
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@Imperious:
Larry has stated many times that the units don’t generally fit standard military models for classic formations (divisions, corps, army) and in some cases these are corps and others they are armies. They are not the same in every case, allowing for the corps in Africa to be symbolized as perhaps 2-3 units, while in the Soviet union one infantry may represent an army ( 3-5 corps).
Yes, IL thanks,
I have been reading those old posts. I note he (Larry Harris) stated the Naval units abstraction was a greater dilution of unit strength, or a direct correlation to vessel numbers from standard representation of Classic fleet/squadron/Battle groups. I am thinking more in chess terms, where tempo or position is sometimes of more value then individual pieces.
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