"Syria 1941 game over on my blog" Topic

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That's a really great looking table, and a cool fight. Thanks for posting.

V/R,
Jack

Nice game! A buddy and I were actually talking today about the FT-17 actually soldiered on in both wars

Great minis

You can't go wrong with an FT-17.

Tell that to the poor crews who had to operate those things. :)

That is one of my favorite campaigns to study and sometimes game. Great looking board and models !

Awesome looking game! What rules did you use? How did you decide the OOB's?
Cheers,
JB

Great looking table and wonderful write up.

Thanks for the comments lads, much appreciated :)

We use a time served version of Charles Grant`s "Battle" rules published in the 1960s (the first proper rules I found way back in the 1970s when I was about 13). The OOBs are based on actual returns and a little research scaled to the rule-set. A platoon is about 10 figs, a company = 3 platoons plus a small HQ. Then a battalion is 3 companies + support. We rarely have more then a battalion on table, but it suits the level of game we play.

Nice job. Working on this period myself, good to know I'm not the only weirdo out there! Good job the Aussies were facing FT17s rather than the R35s that the French also had in Syria.

Actually, there's an R35 on the table.

Not sure what the Aussies had to fight it (2-pdrs on the A/Cs?).

Well spotted :)

25ldrs do a lot of damage to little French tanks :)

Great AAR of one of my favourite campaigns of WW2.

I wonder how have You painted French and British to gain visual recon?

I am working at the same period and have problem with choosing shades of khaki: TMP link

Mostly the hats :)

My FFL mostly have greatcoats anyway – so much darker brown than British/Aussie Khaki and of course they wear kepi or Adrian helmets NOT British tin hats or Aussie Digger hats. when they arewearing uniform jackets these are more brown than British khaki and the officers jacket is more green.

My Senegalese are negro (obviously) and have Chechia fez so look quite distinctive.

My French colonial Army have sun helmets and a much lighter uniform than my Brits, officers in white shirt and blue jacket ;)

All pretty easy to tell apart on tabletop :)

My Free French desert column looks very odd – British khaki with various hats (Tommy helmet, Adrian helmet, Chechia, Kepi and even side-caps or bareheaded). There are whites, negros and North Africans among them also and a variety of weapons.

Thank You for explanation.

Those Elhiem French colonials are beautiful. You even used Italieri Muslim! :)

Yes my militia (here in this game) are various plastic Airfix Arabs & Italeri muslims/Afghans along with metal arabs from Tumbling Dice and Early War Miniatures.

My Senegalese are Waterloo1812 Anglo-Egyptians.

The Lebanese Gendarmerie are various SCW Regulares

The FFL are Tumbling Dice mostly too

The sailors are converted Raventhorpe sailors with Glengary heads.

Thanks Richard. Your blog inspired me to convert 1/300 Goumiers, Foreign Legion and Senegalese for Tunisia WW2. Now I'm going to follow your lead to Syria, albeit again in 1/300!

I try :)

Vive la' France' !!!!!

Inspiring stuff!!!

Vive la' France' !!!!!

Mais a la fois, on avait besoin demander "vive la France, mais laquelle?" Qui etait la France? Le pays ou l'armée de DeGaulle?
Patriote contre le patriote. Quand chacque soldat francais se demandait "ce qui est mon devoir?" Un epoc difficile et triste … tellement intéressant pour l'étude et le jeu.

Or, for the non-Francophonic among us:
But at the same time, they had to ask: "Long live France, but which one?" Who was France? The country, or DeGualle's army?
Patriot against patriot. When each soldier asked himself "What is my duty?" A difficult and sad time .. very interesting for studying and gaming.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

I don't speak much French. But even I can say a few phrases …

FFL on both sides fought against each other. Vichy vs. Free French. After the Campaign, they all became Free French Foreign Legion, IIRC.

Vive la' Legion' !! [The FFL … not me !!]

Legion – that is NOT 100% the case.

The Free French wanted all the former Vichy to change sides and tried to bully them by confronting them without their own officers and NCOs being present (the try and avoid loyalty issues).

This in most cases failed, I`m unsure of the exact figures but only around 2,000 threw in with DeGaulle the rest either elected to stay in Syria under the terms of the armistice, or ship back to France or French North Africa or even home to Senegal.

The whole campaign was a great disappointment and non-result for the allies in the end.

Good point Richard … I was just making to broad a statement. Thank you for your correction.

I was talking about the FFL not all Vichy. My poor posting not making that clear. AFAIK, all Vichy FFL became Free FFL. But I'm sure they may have been some exceptions ?

As the Legion motto, says, "The Legion is our home". But I may have miss read the actual wording. I don't speak very good French or Latin.

Not quite, even those from 6th Legion Infantry and those from 1st Cavalry didn`t all join deGaulle. Quite a few ended up fighting the Yanks in Morocco/Algeria in 1942.

That is what I implied with my comment about the Free French tried to separate the officers from the other ranks to break the bond of loyalty. Many men followed their own officers into exile.

Unfortunately we are decorating and my books are all boxed up and inaccessible for at least the next month or so…………. I think Douglas Porch and Martin Windrow both mentioned it in their coverage of Syria/Lebanon within the context of the Legion. I`m pretty sure Colin Smith gave a numerical breakdown in his "Our Enemies the French" too.

Legion, Baber, thank you for opening this discussion.

I think many in the UK and US, even those who view it as their life's interest to understand WW2, fail to recognize the subtlety, the nuance, the challenge of the French soldier's experience in 1941/42/43.

At least in the US, the narrative seems to go like this:
Vichy French = Nazi allies = bad guys
Free French = US/UK allies = good guys

It is easy to describe and understand when presented in black and white. But that fails to recognize what the truth was on the ground at that time. It was a lot of shades of gray.

Vichy was not a Nazi ally. Vichy was trying to be neutral, to stay out of the war. Many leaders in the Vichy regime, particularly in Africa, were very sympathetic to the allies, and were building/hording forces for their eventual re-entry on the allied side. But this had to be done under:
1) A home national government that was primarily concerned with protecting the interests of un-occupied France, that portion that had remained under French government after the armistice with Germany in June 1940. The home regime was therefore highly focused on not aggravating the Germans. And … over time … the home regime had more and more active collaborators whose sympathies did in fact lie with the Axis.
2) Nazi / Fascist "monitors"
3) Repeated attacks and invasions by the allies

In the meantime the Free French forces had to contend with:
1) No economy. There was no territory, no industry, no population from which to create an army.
2) All resources had to be begged from the British, who were not able to fully supply their own needs, and who required American economic and industrial support.
3) America offered no support for the Free French, putting American diplomatic support behind maintaining relations with Vichy France and trying to bring the Vichy Army of Africa into the fight on the Allied side.
4) A leader, De Gaulle, who was as good at antagonizing his fellow Frenchmen as he was at antagonizing the British and Americans. He portrayed himself as a national hero and the safekeeper of France's national honor, but was widely viewed as a mid-level officer who abandoned his post, his country, and his duty to go off and strut about in front of the British as if he were, in fact, the leader of France (which, by the end of the war, he was!).

To give a sense to the measure of the impact of these discords, (and to give gamers more to model!), in the Tunisian campaign there were TWO French armies fighting against the Axis.

One, the Free French, under De Gaulle, fought with Montgomery's 8th Army. They mostly used British equipment, with a few hybrids combining French equipment from Lebanon/Syrian stockpiles with British-provided motor transport.

The other, the Army of Africa, under Giraud, several times larger than the Free French under De Gaulle, fought with Anderson's 1st Army. They supplied themselves from the French North African territorial/economic base, almost entirely with French pre-war equipment, supplemented by a few begged/borrowed cast-offs of the American or British forces around them.

At one point a lower level commander in Tunisia asked for a shipment of US helmets, so that the Germans he faced might at least think his troops had ammunition.

It was not until after the Tunisian campaign, in June of 1943, at the insistence of the US, that the two were combined under the control of a unified CFNL (French National Committee of Liberation). Only then were the French forces re-organized and re-supplied to the levels of other US supplied forces.

It was a very difficult time for the French soldier. It makes for a very interesting period for study and gaming.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

The Tunisian Campaign is my favourite, we have been fighting the German Eilbotel offensive of January `43 against initially French XIX Corps but eventually British and US troops all involved – pretty intersting and very, very different with all the variety of troop types.

We`ve also run a game set on the Libyan border with a Free French desert column vs Italians – again lots of fun interesting kit.

What can I say anything French (or indeed Spanish) is my thing :)

Thanks for the intel gents. It's been awhile since I have read anything detailed on the Campaign. Always good to learn or relearn !

What can I say anything French (or indeed Spanish) is my thing :)

BTW, The Spanish have a Foreign Legion based somewhat on the FFL too. They started in 1920, IIRC. And fought the Arabs in the Spanish Morocco, etc. Franco commanded one of their Bns.

The Tunisian Campaign is my favourite, we have been fighting the German Eilbotel offensive of January `43 against initially French XIX Corps but eventually British and US troops all involved…

Among my favorites as well! I have done a couple game scenarios with French troops in the Ousseltia Valley, and if I ever figure out how to do the terrain will perhaps do some of the mountain passes too.

I have also done a couple of the clashes at Gare de Sened, where you can bring in green US infantry, US Armored Cavalry, and some French Algerian Spahi cavalry, to try to dislodge veteran Italian infantry and recon troops. I have US and Italian unit history accounts of some of those clashes (there were no fewer than 4 clashes at this one poor miserable lonely train station). Oh such an interesting mix!

BTW, The Spanish have a Foreign Legion based somewhat on the FFL too.

Indeed they do! A friend of mine, Ken Estes, has recounted to me stories of cross training on amphibious ops with the Spanish Foreign Legion when he was in the USMC. He considered them some of the most competent troops he worked with.

BTW – Ken Estes, Lt. Col. USMC (Ret), is an accomplished historian with several notable publications to his credit. Perhaps the best is his history of the tanks of the USMC "Marines Under Armor": link . If you want to understand the tanks of the USMC, why and how they wound up with the tanks, when they had them, how they used them, from Marmon Herringtons to M1A1 Abrams, I highly recommend his book. His treatise on foreign fighters in the SS is also a valuable work, but alas as it is mostly as a textbook for historical academia, it is not widely available.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

I have a Sened Station game under construction based on the 1st Armd attack in January `43 (the second battle I guess).

Guys I should say I have more books on the Spanish Foreign Legion than I do on the French :)

Viva Le' Legion ! The SFL … [My Spanish ain't too good either !] I have the old Osprey book on the SFL. Good read !