"It is my experience that bold decisions give the best promise of success. Normally there is no ideal solution but each possible course has its advantages and disadvantages. One must select that which seems the best from the widest point of view and then pursue it and accept the consequences. Any compromise is bad."
Strategic Briefing
Location: Libya, 1941
Weather: Clear
Time of Day: Early Morning
In April of 1941, the Afrika Korps and its commanding officer, General Erwin Rommel, fell on the British forces in North Africa like the leading edge of a thunderstorm. The stunning success of Rommel's first foray into the African theater was blemished only by his failure to entirely reduce certain British garrisons such as Tobruk, which was still blocking one of his most important paths of advance several months later. Rommel constructed a plan to launch an offensive on Tobruk beginning on November 23, but found his troops engaged with a British offensive five days before the start of his own. The fighting that developed in the subsequent days was fierce and confused, and was described after the war by Brigadier Desmond Young in his book, Rommel: The Desert Fox:
"It was fought at such speed, with such swiftly-changing fortune, under such a cloud of smoke from bursting shell and burning tanks, such columns of dust from careering transport, in such confusion of conflicting reports, that no one knew what was happening a mile away."
The very heart of this battle, according to Brigadier Young, was Sidi Rezegh, about twenty miles southeast of Tobruk. The engagements described herein, involving several companies of Commonwealth and German troops, decided the fate of Sidi Rezegh when the battle was at its height.
Available Forces/Timed Set-Up
This scenario set uses a variation of the traditional Gear Krieg set-up system. Forces are not assigned on a mission-by-mission basis. Rather, each player is given a large pool of forces, and must secretly assign some or all to each of the three missions. Part of the fun lies in guessing which objectives the opposing player will contest most fiercely. This system was previously used in the "East Wind Rain" and "High Summer Hell" scenario sets.
This time around, however, both participants are placed under a higher degree of pressure than usual, and must make their unit placements from incomplete reports within a very short period of time. Both players should sit down together with a stopwatch (or any other convenient timing device) at opposite ends of a table. Each player should have a pen, three pieces of paper, a list of their available forces, and a copy of their mission briefing. Potential players should not look at the briefing or at the individual mission descriptions until after their force assignments have been made.
Once both players are sitting down together, the clock should be started and the mission briefing should be read by each player. They should be given five minutes in which to assign all of their available forces in writing, clearly labeling each of their three sheets of paper to represent the force allotment for each of the three missions. Those forces that have not been assigned by the end of the five minutes will not be made available for the scenario set.
Players should feel free to consult any Gear Krieg sourcebooks they wish during this time to clarify questions about the capabilities of their available units. Experienced players may wish to shorten the available time to four or even three minutes for a real challenge.
For the most complete possible experience, the two players should find a third person to construct the mission maps from them as described in the mission descriptions. However, if such a privilege is unavailable, it's quite acceptable for both players to construct the maps together once their force assignments have been completed and mutually verified.
Incidental forces may be added to individual missions, as described within each.
All German forces are Veteran.
All British forces are Qualified.
Each of the three missions comprising this scenario set has a set of victory conditions. The side that wins two of the three missions wins the battle.
I. Move to Contact, 0745 Hours
III. The Sieve and the Sand, 1000 Hours
British Order of Battle
German Order of Battle
Victory and Defeat
Individual Missions