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Operation Mars is a solid book. One could design a campiagn around the Recon Battalion of LAH in that series of battles, as it saw action against the Soviets on all the fronts.

I've started to work on a little known armor battle in Belguim in '40 - it was the largest tank battle - until Kursk.

Alex

A very big armour battle in Belgium??you never stop learning in this life^__^ <img src="biggrin.gif" border="0"> <img src="biggrin.gif" border="0">

Yep.

Most historians are so busy looking at Guderian -at Sedean and Rommel in the dash for the coast (ignoring the fact that they were up against conscript divisions with no armor, for the most part), that they forget that the elite French forces were fighting in Belguim. The Belgians fought well, too, especially thier Cav - the Chassures Ardennes.

It was a corps sized fight, that lasted from the night of May 12, until May 15th. It was mostly a French delaying action, pitting General Prioux's Cavalry corps - with infantry from the French First Army, and Belgian support against General Heopner's corps of the German 6th Army.

The Allies had no air power - the French and British AFs *refused* to fly ground support, but they had a lot of arty. The Germans; had mostly Mk Is and IIs, and lost a lot of panzer's - and more importanty - panzermen.

In one fight, during the battle, near Breda, the German 9th Panzer Division fought against the spearhead of General Giraud's 7th French Army - which was coming up as reinforcements - and killed 5 French tanks while losing 100 of it's 150.

Alex

Yes Alex,you're right.Your thesis is not proved because i do not know that episode,'cause i read only nearly 20 books so my culture in this subject is not so good,but in the general ww2 books like Liddel Hart's ones or like Lost Victories by Meinstein there's nothing that talks about that battle....
BTW lookin' forward to see your scen

My intended campaign set in 1946 had the larger strategic context focused across a strip of land that roughly cuts Germany in half. From the line of Magdeburg-Dresden to Dusseldorf-Mainz. The course of the campaign itself was to start with a penetration of the front-line at Leipzig moving to Jenna, Erfurt, Eisenach, Bad Horsfeld, then along the Ruhr toward Dusseldorf/Essen area. The plan being to push the other allies to the Rhian and claim as much of Germany as possible.

Tomo

Redleg,

what I'd like to see are battles of the Italian Expeditionary Corps in Russia, specially those concerning the Alpini divisions. The Italian retreat in January 43, mostly by feet and with insufficient weapons and equipment against the overwhelming Red Army would give, IMHO, a lot of interesting scenarios or even a campaign.
(Could help with some info and maps).

AC

A 'what-if' idea that I've been bouncing around for awhile is based on a possible linkup between German and Japanese ground forces. Not sure how remotely realistic it is at all, but it is intriguing to consider German equipment and Japanese infantry in a combined force. I'm still uncertain as to where the most realistic area would be for such a linkup to have occurred.

Opposition forces in such a scenario or mini-campaign would be fun I think.

Brian Price

Originally posted by Mikimoto:
Hello.

I would like to see partisan/guerrilla warfare. Some examples:

The french resistance against Vichy police, Germans, Hiwis...

Yugoslav/Tito partisans causing havoc against Italians, Ustachis, Croatians, Germans, etc...

Ucranian/soviets partisans against germans, bulgarians, rumanians, hungarians, etc..

North Italy communist guerrilla against Fascist Italians and Germans (and all those ucranians, cossacks, croatians, tartars, bosnians, etc... serving with the gerries).

Spanish republican maquis fighting Spanish fascists in the pirineos...

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I once did a campaign with hacked OOBs, Spanish Republican guerrillas and Free French SR Regulars against Spanish Nationalist Regulars. It began in August 1945. By Christmas the Republicans had taken Madrid. I saved it but didn't back it up when I upgraded to ver 5.0. I lost it.

troopie


(Who will now Back Up Everything he wants to save.)

Originally posted by troopie:


I once did a campaign with hacked OOBs, Spanish Republican guerrillas and Free French SR Regulars against Spanish Nationalist Regulars. It began in August 1945. By Christmas the Republicans had taken Madrid. I saved it but didn't back it up when I upgraded to ver 5.0. I lost it.

troopie


(Who will now Back Up Everything he wants to save.)

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Good What-if Troopie.
Sad thing it was not saved...

The objectives of the Maquis (a mixture of Republicans, communists, Catalans, Vasques) in the exile was to involucrate some western nations in his fight against Franco's regime.

Most of them were veterans of Spanish Civil War and had fought in the French Resistance and in the Free French Forces (whole spanish companies in the 2nd DB) against the axis. And some were supervivants of the Nazi camps...

Well, I have spoke with some of them, personally. Most are hungry with France, because they fighted for and France not returned the Favour... And never said, officialy, thank you.

The fight lasted until the 60's. I remember, when I was a child, seeing the "guardia civil" controls in the roads of the Pirineos...

We have a local hero in these parts. Ernest Smith, none as Smokey Smith. He was awarded the VC for this fight. It would be tiny, very tiny. I have already tried, but am useless creating scenarios.
A small blurb about Private Smith

So many ideas. So many great battles to come.

I recently acquired a book entitled, "Behind Fascist Lines", by A. K. Starinov. Anna was a Soviet specialist in partisan warfare, sabotage, and explosives send to Spain to train Royalist forces. When I can, this will be the basis for some small scenarios.

Italians on the Eastern Front also interests me very much.... along with Rumanian and Hungarian forces. For example, what happened to the 4000+ Rumanians in the Stalingrad Cauldron?

How about the dwindling Spanish volunteers who remain to fight after the 250th Blue was withdrawn?

I'll be referring to this forum often to refresh my mind about your preferences and ideas.

Bear in mind that finding information at a level appropriate to SPWAW is, at times, extremely difficult. Finding maps to translate into SPWAW is also quite difficult. Often, I am reduced to resorting to a couple of paragraphs and a lot of imagination in making scenarios. I have even tried emailing people who live in Stalingrad and Spain for descriptions of terrain and locations of things in S'grad and along the Ebro river.
Very difficult.

Occasionally, I find a book written at the tactical level rather than focusing on what Eisenhower, Montgomery, and other generals were doing.

I would like to see a scenario about the '41 battle of Borodino.
I have done some research, but find out that there is little to no info other than some expensive boardgame which I unfortunately cannot find since moving last month.
From what I gather it was a series of battles that preluded the Battle of Moscow, ranging from the end of Sept to around 13 Oct '41.
Anyone with some insight on this would truely make my day go better <img src="eek.gif" border="0">