Hi all,
It's been a long time since I've played a game, but some friends are coming this morning I guess to try out this scenario. I may have shared this in the past, but it's been updated.
-Scenario 1: July 19, The Struggle for Plaça Catalunya.
In the early hours of July 19, 1936, factory sirens call workers out to the streets of Barcelona. The CNT has learned about a plot by fascist officers to launch a military coup and depose the Second Spanish Republic. While the Republic has recently shut down all of the CNT's centers across the country, the workers know that a fascist victory would be a disaster and likely a massacre, and they decide to oppose the army. With the officers' plans in hand, the anarchists cook up their own plan: they will wait until the soldiers leave their barracks, and then ambush them in the streets. At strategic intersections across the city, workers feverishly build barricades and distribute what few weapons they have.
One of the most important targets of the military coup in Barcelona is the Telefonica company building, the communications nerve center for the city. In the early hours, the 13th Regiment of the 7th Infantry Brigade march toward the Telefonica, standing on one end of the grand Plaça Catalunya. Inside, workers and assault guards loyal to the Republic prepare a defense. The Spanish Civil War, as well as the Spanish Revolution, are about to begin.
Set up: Clear summer weather, visibility at 40", 60" with binoculars. Arrange the table with a large urban Plaça surrounded by buildings. Leave street entrances to the Plaça at the 4 corners of the table. The Telefonica stands on one end, and the Hotel Colón on the far side. The Telefonica should have at least 3 floors. Mark one road opposite the Telefonica as the Nationalist entry-point.
Unit Sheets: Make unit sheets for the groups/squads/companies etc.
Ammunition: Nationalists have 10 ammo. Can be resupplied on the 10th turn.
Workers have 5 ammo.
Gameplay: Game begins with 13th Infantry marching toward the square. If no player is commanding the army, the path of the army will be to march (at the rate of movement specified in your rules, or 6 inches plus the roll of 1 die, per turn) down the road and straight into the center of the Plaza. The cannon will be installed in the center of the Plaza, and the crews will attempt to install machine guns in each of the (up to) 4 corners/sides of the Plaza. Once these (up to) 5 pieces are established in position (disregarding any pieces destroyed or captured by workers) in the Plaza, the army will charge the Telefonica with 1 platoon on every other turn. For example, if it takes 4 turns for the army to reach the Plaza and establish its guns, the platoons will charge to commence round 5, 7, 9, and 11, until they are destroyed or they have achieved the objective. If a player commands the army, the player is free to command as they see fit.
Republican forces:
CNT militants: 10 Grupos, (ie, Affinity Groups, or just groups) of 10 workers. 2 Grupos may be placed inside the Telefonica, with the remainder distributed behind barricades anywhere on the board.
2 trucks: These can each transport up to 2 AGs, and be parked and used as barricades. Workers can capture additional vehicles from the enemy.
(Optional) Guardes Asaltos: Up to 2 squads guard the Telefonica, 2 more squads arrive halfway through the game, on turn 10, via subway entrances in the Plaça or on the perimeters.
Army Forces:
Infantry – 13é Regiment d'Infanteri of 7th Infantry Brigade – Around 100 soldiers
1x Company (which includes)
-1 x Command – Comandant López Amor and HQ
-1 x Machine gun section – of up to 4 x Machine Guns + crew
-1 x 75mm Cannon + crew
-(up to) 4 x platoons of Riflemen, 1 officer, 19 men each, (SMGs, grenades ok) each commanded by a Captain or Major.
-each 2 squads of 10 men each, commanded by a Lieutenant or sergeant.
Yellow Squad, Falangist Centuria of García Teresa
-(Optional) 2 or 3 x squads Falange, 10 men each, commanded by a Joaquín Echeverría.
At or after round 7:
Workers reinforcements (arrive from streets behind telefonica):
10 more AGs of 10 workers.
At turn 8:
Army reinforcements (enter at same point as the 13é Infantry):
Artillery – 7é Regiment Lleuger d'Artilleria – up to 50 gunners
-1x Command Captain Fernando Dasí Hernández and the Lts José Dorrego Pascual, Carlos Aliso Sarmiento and Ricardo Segarra Gallart
-2 troop transport trucks – carry up to 15 gunners each, can be deployed after reaching target (center of Plaça Catalunya.
-2 cargo trucks – carry 1-2 cannon each (combined total of 4 cannons max).
-(optional) 1or 2 x squads requette, 10 men each, commanded by a sergeant.
At turn 10:
(Optional) Asaltos – Republican. 2 more squads (arrive via subway entrances.)
POUM Militia – Up to 6 AGs arrive on turn 10. Historically, POUM militia charged the Hotel Colon across Plaça Catalunya from the Telefonica, taken by CNT militia at the same time.
At turn 15:
19th Column of Guardia Civil – 3 squads (arrive from behind the Telefonica) led by Colonel Escobar,
. Roll of dice determines allegiance. 3 or less, they join the Nationalists, 4 or more, they join the workers.
Objectives – Control the Telefonica
*If the army captures the entire building and holds it for 5 consecutive rounds, it wins. (Note: if your model Telefonica has less than 3 playable floors, then the army must control for 8 rounds.)
*Workers win by maintaining possession of the building through 15 rounds, or destroying all enemies.
Game will last 20 rounds. If the conditions of victory are not met in 20 rounds, the players may decide to continue until victory, or grant victory to the player closest to their objective or holding the majority of remaining forces.
Outcome: If the workers are victorious, they may move on to the next scenario, and carry over any remaining ammunition to add to that laid out in the next scenario.
July 19th, 1936 – The Battle for the Telefonica Building, Plaça de Catalunya, Barcelona.
The Spanish Civil War truly began on July 17th, 1936 when fascist generals in the Army of Africa--the highly-trained section of the Spanish army occupying Morocco--declared themselves in rebellion and captured the military bases and important Moroccan cities. This was the beginning of a nationalist military coup against the democratically-elected, left-wing Spanish Republic. For most of Spain, the following days were full of confusion and disinformation. The government refused the offer of help from Spain's largest union, the anarchist CNT. While the Republic had recently shut down all of the CNT's public centers throughout the country, the workers of the CNT decided to mobilize against the army coup anyway, called a general strike, and prepared to fight fascism in the streets. Seditious military leaders launched uprising attempts from army barracks across the rest of Spain on July 19th, setting up a showdown between the army and the people.
In the early hours of July 19, 1936, factory sirens called workers out to the streets of Barcelona. The CNT had learned from anarchist soldiers in the Spanish army about the generals' plot. With the officers' plans in hand, the anarchists cooked up their own plan: to wait until the soldiers left their barracks, and ambush them in the streets. As the sirens rang out, workers' defense committees left their gathering points, headed to their positions. The throngs of militants sang "A Las Barricadas," their union's anthem-turned self-fulfilling prophecy. At strategic intersections across the city, workers feverishly built barricades, distributed what few weapons they had, and gathered to demand more from the authorities.
One of the most important targets of the military coup in Barcelona was the Telefonica company building, standing on one end of the grand Plaça de Catalunya. With its local and long-range telephone switchboards and nearby radio transmitters, the Telefonica was the communications nerve center for the city. In the first hours of the morning, Comandante Major Lopez-Amor Jiménez ordered alcohol distributed to the 500 men under his command in the 13th Regiment of the 7th Infantry Brigade. The seditious military leaders told the soldiers they were to suppress an imaginary anarchist uprising planned in conjunction with the Popular Olympics to be held that day. Marching toward Plaça de Catalunya, the soldiers exchanged shots with workers around University Plaza, left a detachment to guard the area, and continued on toward the Telefonica. At 6 A.M., the soldiers from the 13th Brigade arrived in the Plaça shouting "Long Live the Republic," confusing the groups of workers already gathering to defend the area. The soldiers also encountered Assault Guards (urban police), who were of mixed and questionable loyalty, and thus followed closely by crowds of workers.
First, the soldiers and Assault Guards fired at each other, but soon they were fraternizing and hugging. Workers in the square jumped to action, swarmed the soldiers and guards, and separated the two forces. Lopez-Amor Jiménez had his soldiers detain the civilians to check their identifications, until it became clear that almost all held CNT union cards. It would have been impossible to arrest and hold everyone, so Lopez-Amor Jiménez ordered his men to clear the square and to set up heavy machine guns in four corners of Plaça: the roof of the Maison Dorée restaurant, the roof of the Cataluña Theater, in the Hotel Colón, and the Casino Militar. The bulk of Lopez-Amor's forces mustered in the center of the open square, where they prepared their cannons. The army now controlled the Plaça.
Lopez-Amor marched two platoons of soldiers, and about 30 civilian supporters from the fascist blue-shirted Falange party, into the Telefonica and demanded that the power station directors cut the lines of communication of the Catalan Regional Government, the Generalitat. CNT workers, and assault guards under Lieutenant Perales, head of the 4th Security Company, were already barricading the floors above. Perales ordered his officers to fire warning shots and clear out the army. The soldiers retreated back into the Plaça. Lopez-Amor responded by ordering his artillery to fire on the building. The army fired three volleys from their two 75mm cannons at the Telefonica. It was now 6:30 in the morning. Waves of soldiers charged the building. The Assault Guards and workers inside resisted, but were pushed back. Soldiers captured the ground floors, but the workers and loyal officers barricaded the stairwells and held the rest of the building, protecting important telephone equipment.
The heroic resistance inside the Telefonica prevented the army from establishing communications with the rest of Spain. The CNT workers at the switchboards disconnected the lines linking the fascist generals at the Capitanía building with army barracks around the city, making coordination impossible. Stranded and confused, the dispersed military units of the coup succumbed in the streets to the swarming revolutionary workers. The people had ambushed and defeated army contingents throughout most of Barcelona, and crowds flooded into Plaça de Catalunya. Workers barricaded the side streets, including Fontanella and Puerta del Ãngel on either side of the Telefonica. Workers had conquered the Ramblas first thing in the morning, using the important street as a coordination center, and keeping Lopez-Amor's force isolated from the rebellion headquarters by the docks. At 7 A.M., a light artillery battery departed Sant Andreu barracks to support the 13th Regiment, but they could not break through the barricades and were destroyed.
Meanwhile, the tides had turned in the Plaça de Catalunya. Officers and workers fired relentlessly at the soldiers from rooftops, windows, doorways, alcoves, stairwells, and from behind the barricades. They targeted the artillery crew and soldiers in the open, wounding Lieutenant Gotarredona and the leader of the yellow squad of Falangists, Joaquín Echevarría. Commander Lopez-Amor was wounded in the leg severely enough to require medical treatment in the nearby Casino Militar.
At 8 A.M., the Assault Guards of the 5th Security Company that had been hanging around the Infantrymen suddenly turned on the soldiers. When Lopez-Amor came out of the Casino Militar, Assault Guards, supported by anarchist militants, descended on him. Lopez-Amor drew his pistol but was overwhelmed, and dragged into a car waiting to take him into custody. Next, the Assault Guards tried to arrest Captain Pedro Mercader Bofill, who had more time to offer a fight. Officers of the 5th Security Company gunned the captain down. By this point, machine gun bullets poured into the Plaça from all directions and from each side of the conflict. The next highest-ranking rebel in the Plaça, Captain Don Luis Oller Gil, himself badly wounded, ordered the soldiers to disperse into resistance groups. The army abandoned the open square and took refuge in the Hotel Colón, the Maison Dorée, the Casino Militar, and the lower floors of the Telefonica. The soldiers were trapped, and no reinforcements were coming.
At 11 A.M., Assault Guard units loyal to the Republic received the order from the Generalitat to support the workers in the streets. An hour later, two companies of Assault Guards entered the Jonqueres subway station and headed through the tunnels toward Plaça de Catalunya. By 1 P.M., two companies of the 12th group of Assault Guards, led by Commander Gómez, Captains Arco, and Captain Gutiérrez, emerged from the tunnels and occupied the Grand Metro station and all of its entrances in the Plaça itself. Captain Gil pulled the remaining soldiers in the Plaça back into the Hotel Colón to join surviving infantry and Falangists from the red squad. They defended the Hotel Colón with machine guns on the hotel's balconies and roof, but the anti-fascists continued to advance. At 1:50 P.M., workers reached the 75mm artillery pieces the soldiers left in the Plaça and turned them on the Hotel Colón. Workers and loyal officers, charging in throngs from the subway entrances and side streets secured in earlier fighting, stormed the Casino Militar and the Maison Dorée.
With the afternoon arrived Buenaventura Durruti, true son of the people, CNT leader, and experienced guerrilla, and Enrique Obregón Blanco, Mexican-born Secretary of the Local Federation of Anarchist Groups of Barcelona, with a force of veteran CNT militants. They had spent the morning defeating the army at other points along the Ramblas. In Plaça de Catalunya they found an apocalyptic scene. Dead bodies lay everywhere, cars smoked and burned, and soldiers and the horses who transported the cannons gathered in piles toward the center of the square.
At 3:20 P.M., Colonel Escobar led a large force of the Civil Guard (rural police), of uncertain loyalty at that point and therefore blanketed by vigilant union militants, from the Northwest into the Plaça. Crowds now teemed on the edges of safety, in the subway stations and entrances, alleys and stairwells, just out of reach of the machine guns. They came from all across Barcelona and the towns and villages beyond, descending upon one of the final holdouts of the military rebellion. Among them, a retired artillery soldier-turned longshoreman, Manuel Lecha, had gathered a crew of workers at the site of the ambush on the artillery battery, to roll a captured cannon by hand. Lecha now positioned it in the Plaça de Catalunya and opened fire on the fascists.
The workers decided to force the matter of the guards' loyalty, and rushed the front doors of the Telefonica at 3:30. Durruti and Obregón led hundreds of workers in a charge from the mouth of the Ramblas, across the Plaça, and through the torrent of machine gun bullets. The anarchists threw open the front doors and poured into the Telefonica building, unleashing a bloody battle for the ground floors. Many long-time CNT militants perished in the battle, Enrique Obregón included. The beleaguered soldiers on the lower floors soon surrendered, and the workers' committee controlled the building and its strategic switchboards for the following year. Across the square, POUMistas, joined by Civil Guards, stormed the Hotel Colon. By 4 P.M., the last rebel soldiers in Plaça de Catalunya surrendered. Civil Guards arrested the army officers and some falangists, while many rank and file soldiers defected and joined in the revolutionary celebrations sweeping across the city.
Sources:
-El ejercito del 19 de julio en cataluña: tres generales frente a frente: Goded, Llano de la Encomienda, Aranguren by Felio A Vilarrubias
-Durruti in the Spanish Revolution, by Abel Paz
-La insurrección del 19 y 29 de julio de 1936, en Barcelona, by Agustín Guillamón
-Atles de la Guerra Civil a Catalunya, by Víctor Hurtado, Antoni Segura i Mas, and Joan Villarroya Font
's first experience with 1:4800 scale naval models.
