Spanish Involvement in World War II

Most people don’t realise that although officially neutral Spain had an active part in WW2 in the form of the Blue Division, otherwise known as the Spanish Volunteer Division, Division Azul, or by its official German title of the 250th Infantry Division of the Wehrmacht. Individual Spaniards were also involved on both sides during WWII, often in quite large numbers. In a few cases these individuals were collected into units.

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Timeline of the Blue Division

This is a rough outline of the life and times of the Spanish fighting on the Eastern Front during WW2 – the Blue Division. I’ve included some detail about higher level operations to provide context and ditto for nearby operations. The 250th (Blue) Division’s finale was at Krasny Bor. If you’re looking for maps then try here.

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Multiplayer Pocket – A Three Table Crossfire Scenario

Multi-player Pocket - Crossfire - Banner

I was asked to run a one-day Crossfire game for 6-8 members of the Guildford Wargames Club. This is what I came up with. It was designed to use all the WW2 / Eastern Front infantry I had at the time – one battalion a side – plus supporting equipment, however, with play testing I decided to increase the forces of each player to at least 1 company. This meant the total forces on each side ended up being 4 Infantry Companies + 1 Infantry Platoon + 2 AFV + 2 or 3 ATG.

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Political Commissar Rule for Crossfire

The Political Commissar Special Rule for Crossfire. Standard Crossfire doesn’t cover this but it is described in Hit the Dirt (p. 8). The rule is optional but is applicable to Soviets in WWII – in particular between July 1941 and November 1942 – and communists in any number of civil wars and insurgencies, e.g. the Spanish Civil War and the Portuguese Colonial War.

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