Taking the Tip - Port Said, 1956

[WBWilder]

The newest from the Wild Team in a beginner's version and one a little tougher for those ued to the fight.

49 years ago this month, this event made history.

This scenario portrays the para drop of B Company of the British paras at Port Said during the Suez Crisis.

http://www.wargamer.com/gamesdepot/details.asp?sid=4144

So stand up and hook up...WB

[junk2drive]

1854 to 965 draw on the easy version.
Nothin' easy about it. One turn short of taking the last flag.
Thanks for the battle WB.

[trip_1509]

1987 to 984 Marginal Victory. Easy
As mentioned above: Wasn't nothin'easy about it
Good fight though. Airborne!

Trip

[WBWilder]

Thank you gentlemen! Yes, "easy" is a relative term, of course. It is no "picnic," whichever version you play. B Company historically had a rough time of it.

But these are great victories. That kind of victory would have pretty well linked you up with the para companies fighting on either side of you.

No shame here. Good fight and good fighters.

it is so nice of you guys to take the time to comment.

I'll just say, "Whoa Mohammed!"

I appreciate the updates...WB
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[narwan]

One thing is off though in the scenario (only tested the hard version). When reloading from an ammo unit the unit will reload the ammo load off the ORIGINAL weapon for that slot. In other words, you can change weapon slots (as has been done here) but the game will look at the weapon for the original unit to see what type and how much ammo is needed for that slot. If there was no weapon (as with the units based on scout teams) nothing will be reloaded. Speed of reloading is however determined by the actual weapon in the slot. What this means in the scenario is that some units will load up with 90 hand grenades and 30 bazooka HE rounds, but others won't get a single extra round for their smg's, (sniper) rifles or lmg's (when it's not in slot 1). The loading of the handgrenades and bazooka rounds can take a lot of time too and if you don't move them out in time 'steal' reload time from squads in desperate need for rifle rounds.

Narwan

[WBWilder]

That is true. That is why I left secondary weapons, (SMGs, bazookas, hand grenades, etc) at a higher number.

This way the player only has to worry about getting ammo for his primary weapon, which in most cases is their rifle or MG.

Otherwise, one would spend a lot of idle turns just reloading.

The best way to play this one is to get a unit to the ammo containers, let him sit for one turn, then move it out.

If you have more than one unit adjacent to an ammo container, the second unit will not start to reload until the first one is finished.

So what you have to do is get the ammo you can for one turn, then move away. This allows the second unit to begin its reloading.

It would be nice if all could fully reload in one turn but it just doesn't work that way.

So the trick, as I'm sure you know, Narwan, is to load a minimal amount and then get into the action.

WB

[narwan]

Yes, I do know that, The start load out (few rifle rounds but a 'full' load of handgrenades and bazooka rounds) implies as much.
I pointed it out because I wasn't sure if this element of reloading was taken into account. An unsuspecting player for example might want to load up on specific ammo (get more sniper rifle rounds for example) but instead gets more (superfluous) handgrenades or nothing at all (if the original unit had just two weapons and the second slot held only 6 handgrenades). I don't think the average player knows about the 'original weapon' reload rule. Having to rely on ammo reload makes it a hard scenario already but a player also needs to be aware of some 'code related' aspects to do it right. Time is critical in this scenario and might be easily wasted.
But then again, it is the 'hard' version of the scenario and people shouldn't expect anything to be easy in it!

[narwan]

Hi, I just noticed something else. I've been running the scenario a bunch of times in a row just to see how the paradrops average out. Turns out usually 1 planes drops most of it's load in the 'water' and losses over 50% aren't that uncommon (average seems to be about 30%). However, it's not just the 'water' that's killing the para's. There are quite a few full 'land' hexes that kill them too. These appear as having a -1 height which seems to be enough to kill any para landing in it (drowning in 30 centimeters of 'water'?). Note that hese are not swamp hexes (those have -2 to -3 height) but usually sand, for example: 18,6 19,6 20,20 20,21 14,21 and a couple more.
Is that intentional? Losses are already high without these hexes. Again, just wondering.

Narwan

[trip_1509]

Hard version:
Britain 1478
Egypt 1628
Draw ( took one hex, took out both AA guns)

1) Never got the second Para drop (?)
2) Egypt units KO and LO show them carrying 2A29 65 (2 each). No ammo but the range is 5000. Scared the hell out of me until I realized they weren't decimating my paras with empty weapons.
3) Now I know what Easy meant on the last version.

[WBWilder]

I have no idea what kind of weapon that would be for the Egyptians. I'll take a look.

The paradrops are always a problem as far as accuracy is concerned. This has been true in every scenario I've done with paras. There are a couple of them in the upcoming Caribbean Crisis campaign, which should be issued within the next couple of weeks.

You did well, Narwan, in mentioning this. I myself did know that until I began designing the scenario. This made me dig into the system of reloading. Probably it should have been mentioned more clearly in the text file and I'm glad you brought it up here.

There are two C-119s that make drops on turn one. I have never had just one drop.

The easier scenario is basically different because it gives you a third plane load of British paras, more men to fight with.

I'm off to look at those Egyptian units. I'll be back.