Carabanchel – Crossfire Battle Reports

I’ve played my Carabanchel Scenario a few times now. All were close run affairs until the final moments.

The Table

The Games

Chris Harrod and I played a couple of times then Andrew Coleby and I played another two games. With both opponents each player played each side.

Nationalist Republican Result Time Summary Battle Report
Chris Steven Republican Victory 90 min Nationalists had captured the front terrain objective but neither of the rear terrain objectives when they reached their casualty limit. Battle Report 1
Steven Chris Republican Victory 60 min Nationalists had captured the front terrain objective and one of the rear terrain objectives. However they were taken over the casualty limit when the Republicans retook the rear terrain objective. Battle Report 2
Steven Andrew Republican Victory 40 min Nationalists had captured the front terrain objective. But then a couple of bad close combat rolls took them over the casualty limit. The first of  these involved a Regulares platoon plus CC attacking some militia with a +4 advantage; the anarchists rolled a 6 and the Moroccans a 1 = lots of dead Moroccans. The second was only a +2 Nationalist advantage but also saw them losing.  
Andrew Steven Republican Victory 90 min Nationalists took the front terrain objective unopposed. They used lots of smoke to cover their advance and, of the four games, advance their tanks the most far … almost to the Military Hospital.  But when the Regulares finally contacted the militia, who had deployed back, the Moroccans twice charged across an open road under fire. That took out two platoons and basically lost them the game.  

Conclusion

Despite the fact the Republicans won all of the games we felt the Nationalists had a reasonable chance to win. All were close run affairs until the final moments.

This is the first scenario which features my new buildings for diagonal streets. These added some interesting tactical considerations. In particular:

  • Corner building sectors offered good fields of fire for Rifle Squads but not for HMG because of their 90 degree arc of fire.
  • Corner building sectors created interesting junctions and resulting fields of fire.

The games raised questions about the definition of a “stand width” in the context of a built up area. Generally the question is, can a commander assist subordinate troops in a neighbouring building sector? Chris and I played that they could but in hindsight I was not sure it is quite so clear cut. Andrew and I played that they couldn’t.

I was surprised how fast the games were. My previous experience of heavily built up areas, e.g. SU-152s Up Close and Personal which was on a similar sized table, had led me to believe that such games were quite long to play. This wasn’t true for the Carabanchel games. The games played to a satisfying and comfortable conclusion in less than 90 minutes.

The scenario offered both players tactical decisions before the game started. Placement of the terrain objectives, barricades and troops were key decisions affecting how the games unfolded. In each game both the attacker and defender experimented with options. But there was always a surprise for somebody.

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