"Somewhere in the Sudan, 1941...." Topic

Early War action in East Africa – South African / Kings Sfrican Rifles task force attacks Italian resupply column to one of their forts…

In this sector the Italians are more competitive as the Great Upgrading hadn't happened yet, its the Last Biplane War and on a field where a tankette is the Sherman and the 2 pdr is an 88… link

One of my favorite theaters! Terrific- looking game. You're probably aware that none of the Solothurn 20mm ATRS made it to AOI? To my mind this is what makes the campaign so interesting -- the shoestring supply situation and obsolescent gear.

Neither 20mm armed light tanks did
Anyway thanks for posting..Also for me

m'y favorite sideshow.which scale? Seems 20 mm..and in this case which figures did you used?

Very nice! I am a big early war fan and agree that this whole period is very under-gamed

I too like the early war period. And there are a lot of battles that never get played … Great looking models and table !

Glad you enjoyed it, we really enjoyed the early war game experience. Its also interesting to see hwo useful tankettes etc are when AT are near non-existent.

No Solothurns used, didn't know re no 20mm tanks – but we don't know if the 2pdrs were arond in numbers that early (Hartebeest era) either so we thought it was evens.

Most of my data for the SA forces are taken from this excellent eBook – East African and Abyssinian Campaigns by Neil Orpen (lots of interesting pix in it)
link

Scale is 20mm, variety of lead & plastic figs used, South Africans are the Strelets plastic "Union of South Africa Infantry" set and the SHQ lead S Africans with some Zvezda Tumbling Dice guns & crew. KAR are Airfix Gurkha and Australisn sets plus s few SHQ lead ANZACS.

I'll ask my opponent what he used for Italians but I know it was mainly lead figures and Italian trucks are mainly resin,

SA Marmon Herrington MK1s are SHQ, SA trucks are mainly the PST plastic Ford 3 tonner plus a die-cast few Austin Tillies. Fwiw I'm surprised the Ford truck isn't a common model, *all* the allies and the Germans used them (I wrote a piece on this oddity here link )

Re obsolescent equipment, it is very interesting how forces that were pretty "state of the art" in 1935 are outdated by 1940, and the Italian problem from now on is they can't really upgrade but by end of East Africa the SAAF has replaced Hartebeests, Furies and Gladiators with Hurricanes

very interesting the period that you choosed to play..i'm also staging the armies, me too in 20mm, but unfortunatly i'm aone to do it…
i've collected quite a few sources above all Italian ones..including primary sources and war diaries…it's very entertaining to reserach on particular askari units of our Colonial Army..about armoured presence in AOI i find a 40 pages articles from the journal of our Italian Army Publishing Service detailing every single battle or even single patrol skirmishe in which Italian Armour saw actions..direct confrontation between British amour and Italian ones were rare but a pair did took place.
plenty of different troop types..including Belgian native troops and specially company Strength German unit made out of German merchant sailor whic shipps took refuge, at the start of the war, in Massawa harbour. They were equipped and dressed with Italian items but sported German insignia..they fought quite well in a few battles and up to the last man..
in general a very colourful sideshow to play..
..i own some already painted dubat, bande and eritrean askari from my own Italwars range at this very scale…a few KARs were made trough Raventhorpe and i must have a try with your idea of using Airfix Anzacs to depict them …this particular campaign saw also a good and effective use of Italian native cavalry units..also very colourful …
among interesting reading, in addition to Open, i can suggest also those ones:

with synthetic but very detailed purposly made maps that call for ready made scenarios with indication of every singles company and tanks

in french but very good if you want to game this unknown campaign with Belgians native troops and a few Sudanese ones on the Galla Sidamo nile Province pitted against Gazzera Army made out of many irregulars, some askaris and a few home-made armoured cars…good ispiration for scenarios with a pair of well detailed maps

a must for those who don'know it….our Italian Lettow Voerbeck or Lawrence of Arabia with his irregulars and "bandits" behind British lines in occupied AOI..