El Gringo (David Makin)
As threatened here follows my views with the benifit of hindsight!
What was the Republican Plan?
48th MB would hold it's position with Div Asset support.
70th Bde would advance from a start line running East from Roncal to the Rio Blanco. Initial objectives being Cobo and Fuertes, once taken then Bejares and San Miguel. Thus providing Western Flank security to:
Brigada Movil which re-inforced with the Tank and Reserve Infantry Bn were to strike south from Pedras, initial objective being Yerbajo then the Divisional objective Eche.
The XIIth bde arriving as the battle progressed was the Divisional reserve, primary objective to follow up Brigada Movil, conditional order was to reinforce the 48th Bde if they were attacked by a Bde of Nationalist.
The Hvy Art Grp fired pre-planned missions for Brigada Movil then 70th Bde.
The Med Art Group was under Brigada Movil direction.
The Field Art Group was under 70th Brigade direction.
Air attacks were planned to hit the enemy in depth. Since I could not be sure of the advance position of the attacking Brigades and didn't want any "friendly fire" incidents.
So what went wrong?
Well... nothing really..
Brigada Movil brushed aside the enemy and stormed on to the Divisional objective.
70th Bde Managed to take Cobo and part of Fuertes and at least threaten San Miguel, thus securing the Western flank of Brigada Movil.
48th Bde was hit hard by the Nationalist attack, but with the arrival of the Divisional reserve Bde (conditional order) managed to limit the enemies advance to south of Villanueva.
Thus the first day ended..
The next two days were spent keeping the Nationalists off balance by local counter-attacks and penentrations.. the tempo and placement of these attacks were designed to cause the nationalist to continually shift forces from north to south and back, thus prevent them from concentrating against any one part of our line.
These counter-attacks and penentrations were expensive in lives... but probably less expensive than if the enemy had been left in peace to grab the initiative and concentrate on any particular bde... especially with their massive amount of artillery!
What was the Nationalists plan?
Apart from the push north from Bejares towards Villanueva they didn't appear to have one!
This might be a trifle harsh on the Nationalist players but all I could discern of their intention was to feed units into the meat grinder of Campobueno-Castilo and throw penny-packets at the rest of my division.. well at least until the last day when they seem to get their act together and launch serious attacks against Brigada Movil and started to out flank Castilo via hill 1201.
Why they did not strike SE from Roncal, Fuertes or San Miguel is a mystery to me.. any such move done in sufficient strength would have seriously threatened Brigada Movils Line of Communication (LoC) and caused significant problems.
I had determined reasonably early that the Madrid rail line was likely to be the Nationalist objective.. hence my assigning my second most experienced Bde to reserve.. if the enemy attacked from East of the Rio Blanco then they would have run into Brigada Movil then the XIIth Internationals.. while if they attacked near Bejares they would be opposed by most of the 48th Bde (entrenched) at least some of the 70th and then by the XIIth.
Anything less than a Brigade size attack should have been containable by the local forces and so was not a cause for the conditional employment of the XIIth Bde.
Was there method to my Employment of Reserves?
It might not have appeared to my Brigade commanders that I did have a method (to my madness? ;-)).. I'll disapoint them by saying that I did.. I had three self imposed priorities.. 1st to keep the enemy from the rail line, 2nd to keep Brigada Movil on the Divisional Objective and the 3rd as an adjunct to this to keep the Brigada Movil in supply.. this was only achievable by routing reinforcements to the XIIth and Brigada Movil. All I could spare for the 48th and 70th was artillery.. and even this was often needed elsewhere.. that both the 48th and 70th held is a tribute to both the Republican email and table-top players of those units.
If I was the Nationalists how would I have done it?
Assuming that I was attacking from Bejares..
I would have aimed my blow to the East of Castilo.. attacking with Brigades in echelon with massive artillery support.. The First Bde would keep driving north while the follow on brigade(s) would seize/secure the flanks..
If the Bridge at Vibrias or Casatejada could not be taken then pushing through Sertal would have lead to the rail line without having to cross the major obstacle of the Rio Blanco.
I eagerly await the hindsight views of the other participants, especially my Nationalist opposite number!
Big Questions for him:
What was his plan?
Where did he think it went wrong?
Why no NE push?
Did he recognise the importance of Cobo-Pedras-Yerbajo?
Why wasn't Castilo by-passed?
Did he know/suspect the existance of the San Miguel by-pass?
I look forward to the answers!
All the best
David Makin
General De Rivera (Rolf Hedges)
As commander of the nationalist forces, the loss of the eastern flank on the first day, largely was a consequnce of my intelligence staff ( as my wife who downloaded the campaign map at work , left the most eastern 6 hexes part of the map at her office ) .
Had this not happened , combined with the Republican generals lucky attack on this undefended area , I'm sure the game would have been completely different.
Having looked at the final map positions and the neutral summary , I was astounded to see the weakness of some of the republican defences, namely on the north west at the end.
The initial republican defences at Campobueno - I thought and I'm sure I was led to believe these were much stronger at the time - again a failure of intelligence ? If I had known this I would have continued the attack with gusto .
I was also surprised with the weak end positions at the central eastern sector of the game , again I had no idea - I would have expected several units , and was informed of well prepared trenchworks in that vicinity after a probing attack designed to cut the republican supply route .
I thought there were more Repulicans at Pozuelo , and guessed right about Eche ( the reason why I didn't commit the reserve Falange battalion ).
I also felt there were many more T26 units than it appears there were - I must confess to being paranoid about them and concentrated on despatching as many as possible, and always felt threatened by them - basically as we didn't have a lot to deal with them .
I think It would also have helped in understanding CD rule systems - We know David Makin's full knowledge of them from the CD mailer , last time I played CD was in Madrid with Jaime and friends some several years ago.