Eritrean escapade: Keren (1941)

Alongside the 19th century, WWII is my other favourite period to wargame. This is because, for reasons to do with technology and geometry, they generate more (and more interesting) tabletop decisions than other periods. I was therefore perfectly happy when, as a change from our usual C19 games, Crispin brought out his game of the battle of Keren.

In 1941, Keren was the scene of the decisive action in the British campaign to conquer the Italian colonial province of Eritrea. Keren was a formidable position on a mountain ridge, barring the pass that led to the port of Massawa. There were really two battles. The first lasted from 3-12 February 1941 and saw two brigades of 4th Indian Division fail to break through in the face of tough Italian defence and vigorous counterattacks. After a pause, 5th Indian Division was brought up as well. The new assault lasted from 15-27 March. After further hard fighting, the Italian line cracked. The Italians retreated to Massawa but lost many taken prisoner. Massawa held out for another week or so before surrendering.

This scenario only covers the first battle. No doubt Crispin will give us the second in due course. The rules we used are Crispin's own adaptation of BBB for WWII. We had a previous go with these when we fought the prequel to Keren, Gallabat-Metemma (see brief report here). I'll save my thoughts on rules for the Reflections at the end of this post. Meanwhile, here's the story in 15 photos.

This shows most of the battlefield from behind the British left. Those daunting mountains were custom carved by Crispin. They extend a little further left and right of pic. Blue and white lines are the road and river running through the pass. Pinkish line is the first contour level of the mountains. That's right, they're four levels high.

Troops in the foreground are three battalions of 11th Brigade, 4th Indian Division. Each base is 100 men. Figures are Baccus 6mm from Crispin's collection.

Italians defend the mountains, top of pic. White counters mark Objectives. Figures are Irregular 6mm from Crispin's collection.

The Italian defences are a tough nut to crack. Luckily, the British brought lots of 25 lb hammers. This is just half of our eventual 8-model gun line.

Italian askaris in their red fezzes defend Fort Dologorodoc, commanding the pass.

Outside the dusty town of Keren, the Italian mobile reserve waits for Dave W to give it orders to move. The CV3/33 tankette evidently expects to retreat when the cavalry advance.

Matt took command of 11th Bde. I provided fire support while I waited for my command to arrive on table. Matt's troops struggled up the steep hills in the teeth of deadly fire from Crispin's Italians. Not much progress was made on the first 'day'. (The scenario represents this 10-day battle in 9 game turns, with two 'Night Intervals' after turns 4 and 7.) Here you can see Matt's initial three battalions clinging to the lower slopes of the mountain, with a fourth in the foreground that has arrived overnight.

Day 2: the Indian right wing, my 5th Brigade, deploys in the foreground to try and seize those two Objectives top centre and right. Dave T brings more Italians marching onto the mountaintops to oppose me. 

Having learned from Matt's painful experience on our left, our right wing starts to scale the mountainside, trying to avoid massed enemy fire.

Back on our left, one battalion from Matt's 11th Brigade has reached the summit on the enemy's right flank (left edge of pic). Two others are still pushing up the hillside to join it. The Italians wait in their green-chalked trenches. Note the small 3-base column with the blue counter at the base of the hill: that was Matt's lead battalion, 2nd Cameron Highlanders, that had 4 bases blown away when it crested the narrow ridge in front of the Italian position. But it will rally and do great things later.

Mirroring Matt's outlanking move on our left, here my 5th Bde is doing the same on our right. My men have taken one Objective (lower right) and are eyeing the next (centre of pic). The 25-pounders have started to take their toll on the Askaris (yellow and blue counters show one unit Disrupted and Spent).

The Italians respond to Matt's left-flanking move by pulling back to refuse their flank. Their fire is pinning down the Rajputs.

Things are getting harder on our right as well. Italian reinforcements are being rushed up, including a couple of battalions of Savoia Grenadiers (the larger 5-base units in upper half of pic). My Indians are taking casualties and bogging down.

Desperate fighting on Matt's side. He has taken the Objective top left, but his Rajputs are now Disrupted, Spent, Low on Ammo, and heavily outnumbered (more Italians rushed up here too.) On the plus side, his Camerons have recovered some of their strength overnight and are getting ready to return to the fray (lower right).

Back to my end of the table. All Italian attention here has been drawn off towards the intense firefight at the righthand end, where we have taken a second Objective (the peak upper centre). Our final reinforcement therefore arrives at the perfect time: 5th Mahratta LI (lower left) sneaks up on Fort Dolgorodoc.

With fire support from the 25-lbers (now massing 80 guns), the Mahrattas' advance causes the Askaris to desert the Fort. The Italians have no reserves close enough to reoccupy it. The only question is whether the Mahrattas can get a good enough movement roll to capture it on the last turn ...

... and they do! The hapless tankettes can do nothing about it. Our right wing has therefore taken 3 Objectives.

Punjabis bolster the Rajputs. This Objective remains contested at nightfall. Out of shot to the right, the Camerons managed to seize another vacant ridge Objective (the one on the opposite side of the pass to Fort Dolgorodoc). That made a total of 4 Objectives, enough for the Indians to claim victory, somewhat to my surprise given how hard it was for us initially.

Reflections

A Different Vibe. As soon as I saw the arid, dusty-brown table with its towering mountains (by 6mm standards), I was already transported elsewhere. Eritrea? Askaris? Rajputs and Mahrattas? All very exotic and unusual (to me, anyway). Add in Crispin's rule tweaks to accommodate WWII weaponry and tactics, and I was definitely in a different place from my usual Monday night. Great stuff.

Eternal Verities. For all its exotic and esoteric and different features, the underlying principles remained: use cover, seek flanks, concentrate firepower, maintain a reserve ... and so too did the underlying BBB rule mechanisms that help to embody those principles on the tabletop.

Speaking of Rules. I admit I was a little sceptical about adapting BBB for WWII. I've seen several different approaches (including one of my own) and I'm not 100% sold on any of them. But I think for this scenario at least, Crispin's subtle tweaks produced the right effect: while it was hard for our Indians to attack up a mountain against automatic weapons, it was not impossible once we brought artillery and the right tactics to bear; and by the end the Indian troops' superior quality was starting to tell, as the fragile Italian numbers crumbled away. Well done, ref!

Crispin's scenario is available from the files of the BBB io group here (you have to join the group to get access).