A rather belated after action report on our game to mark the centenary of ANZAC Day

Rather than the initial landing at ANZAC Cove what if instead the landings had taken place further north at Suvla Bay? This would allow a much larger bridgehead to be established on the flatter terrain of the Anafarta plain rather than the much more vertically challenging terrain inland from ANZAC cove. This scenario looks at what may have occurred if the same forces had clashed further north on that fateful first day 100 years ago. 

The following pictures are all taken looking east from near the north end of the Salt Water Lake at Suvla Bay. The village of Anfarta Sagir is on the hills in the distance with the Takke Tepe range to the left and the Sari Bair range to the right.

The Australians were also supported by some naval gunfire.

Lovely looking game gents.

Excellent, Paul !
Thanks for putting the flags there, to show the starting positions of the troops.
(Well....It helped me, anyway.  )

Cheers - Phil

Nice to see a 'what if?' scenario gamed to see what might have been. The captions worked nicely to allow me to follow the action .

Good looking game. The flags and captions are a winner for me.

This was the first time we played this scenario - the Ottomans (played by Paul) had the luck of the dice all night. The Anzacs got forward but never made it near to the villiage, being absolutely flailed by enemy fire while the %^$($**$## tea break card came up many times before many of the Anzac units could do anything useful (and I said before that I love TFL rules for that reason?   )

We played it again over a couple of weekends although the result was the same in the end. In the second game the Ottomans had to retake the village after being chucked out with much bloody hand to hand fighting. One company of Aussies were not endeared to the Navy when the naval barrage landed a bit short of the target. The mountain batteries also were of limited value as the gunners couldn't roll a spotting role of 7 or better for about the fiirst ten moves, even if their card did come up....."there's a village and some hills over there Sir, but can't see anyone around" 

In the end the Anzacs did well but didn't have enough numbers to hold the ground initailly taken by them against the Ottoman reinforcements which came on later in the game.

A couple of decent games, even if the side I was playing on came second. I was pretty pleased with the scenario design, so when I get back from the UK might try some further Gallipoli game designs.

Techno - the flags are "blinds" that are used until a unit is either sucessfully spotted or chooses to "decloak" in Star Trek parlance.

Cheers
Peter

Both games were pretty tense for the Turks with several critical moments but each time some good shooting and/or the timely turn of a card allowed the situation to be restored.

The frequent appearance of the Tea Break card really hindered the Australians as it stopped them moving troops forward, particularly their second two battalions. The Turks often didn't need to move and still got to fire as the Australians had already advanced to short range 

My dice were embarrassingly good in the first game; long runs of 6s, broken by the occasional 5 which at short range is as good as a 6

Quote from: pierre the shy on 15 May 2015, 09:43:11 AM
Techno - the flags are "blinds" that are used until a unit is either sucessfully spotted or chooses to "decloak" in Star Trek parlance.
Cheers Peter

Ah......Right !....Understood !......Thanks for that, Peter.  
I wondered why I was having trouble spotting many actual figures on the table.
Cheers - Phil

Quote from: Techno on 16 May 2015, 05:55:15 AM
Ah......Right !....Understood !......Thanks for that, Peter.  
I wondered why I was having trouble spotting many actual figures on the table.
Cheers - Phil

There were some figures on the table

 

It was really only the very first piccy that i was having problems with, Paul. 
("Where is everybody ?" thought Techno. )

Cheers - Phil

Good looking game, Peter. So have you proved definitively that the Suvla Bay operation would have been a debacle? I know the later operation was no great success - mainly due to Stopford's incompetence.

Don't know how definitive it would be Hertsblue - the scenario was conjectural, but not too far removed from what I would imagine the covering force objectives would have been if they had landed at Suvla Bay.

The best summary of the campaign I have found is this introduction to "The landing at ANZAC" by Brig Chris Roberts. He says "Just as the Navy had been forced into a purely naval attack, the Army had now been drawn into a new theatre of war it neither wanted nor had the resources to commit. Rather than arriving at the need for the campaign through measured analysis and pragmatic considerations, the campaign had evolved through wishful and at times impulsive thinking in search of highly questionable strategic outcomes, based on a poor opinion of eneny capabilities and an attempt to salvage political reputations".  

The actual British landings at Suvla Bay in August 1915 were handled very badly and without any sense of urgency whatsoever, resulting in the eventual front line being well short of where it should have been.

I think the game reflected pretty well that the initial objectives could be taken but not easily held against large scale counter attacks once the defenders had time to react to the landings.

opps