All,
AKA, the third fight in Operation Nachshon
It is 1100 on 7 April 1948, and Dor Peleg's 3rd Platoon is attacking south to north on the eastern end of the Arab village of Al-Qastal, its objective: the Arab Liberation Army headquarters in the village. This attack is in support of the Etzioni Brigade's attack, which has bogged down in the west end of the village. 2nd Platoon had just taken the old Roman Fort south of the village, but casualties have been so bad that 1st and 2nd Platoons have been combined, and they are manning defensive positions there while 3rd Platoon assaults into Al-Qastal from the south.
Overview of the eastern end of the village of Al-Qastal, north is up. Lots of dwellings and shops made of stone, numerous stone walls, the Jews will attack from the south, and their objective is the Arab Liberation Army headquarters, which is the building at top center.
You can see Palestinian Arabs spread across the top of the map, occupying the HQ (top center) and the buildings to its left and right. 3rd Platoon is spread across the bottom: Dor has a certain tactical flair. If you recall, his platoon fought in the south of Mar Gush, where he split his forces in the face of an attack by superior numbers, leaving several men to occupy a trench line while he led the remainder on a 'right hook' to flank the enemy attack. It worked then, and now he's trying an equally risky plan: he has placed his machine gun team in the center, but then he decided on having two small (three men each) enveloping elements (bottom left and bottom right), rather than a more traditional, and more tactically sound, single enveloping element of six men. Aside from the fact they are more of assault elements than enveloping elements as the enemy's front is too broad to be flanked (due to tactical considerations: friendly fire to the left as the Etzioni Brigade is there, and not wanting to have an exposed flank as the edge of the village is just off table to right). We'll see how this goes…
The platoon commander, Dor Peleg, spots an enemy soldier dashing across the road to help a comrade. Dor sights in with his Lee-Enfield, and fires. To see how the fight went, please check the blog at:
link
The remaining Jews of the company quickly consolidated their positions in the village of Al-Qasat; lack of manpower dictated they abandon their positions at the old Roman Fort, though they sent messengers to inform the local Palmach commander, Yitzhak Rabin, of the situation, and he was able to spare some troops to cover the southern flank, though he was unable to spare any troops to reinforce the company, now whittled down to a nub and expecting an Arab counterattack to re-take their headquarters. Which arrived mere hours later.
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paints up some Israeli mortar vehicles.
