WW2 in the Aegean: Operation Nostalgia Campaign

I clearly have the attention span of a gnat! There I was, having completed 'Into the Gap', starting to prepare for my next WW2 battle in the Western Desert when I got distracted. You will have seen from my workbench updates that I had begun repainting my old 1/1200 scale WW2 warships that I have not touched since the 70's. This was meant to be something of a slow-time job while I painted other figures and vehicles. There is a problem though. I thoroughly enjoyed painting them and worse still, it ignited a whole raft of ideas together with a touch of nostalgia.

Most of those ideas revolved around a WW2 campaign that I have started and failed to complete several times over the years. You will have seen under my 'Collections and Projects' page reference to Operation Nostalgia. So what is Operation Nostalgia?

Operation Nostalgia is a fictional campaign by Richard Marsh (of Rapid Fire rules) detailed over two articles in the November and December 1993 issues of Wargames Illustrated. It is set in the Aegean and I reproduce here the background laid out by Richard in the first of those articles: 

Continued -




Fact
The Spring of 1943 saw the last act of the Axis dictators' African adventure played out in the Tunisian hills. Defeated at Stalingrad, and now facing ejection from the southern Mediterranean, the axis armies seemed to have reached their nadir. The pressure was on the Allied High Command to exploit the enemy's misfortune and hasten their total defeat.

Even before the surrender of Axis forces in North Africa the Allies had begun preparations for 'Operation Husky' - the assault on Sicily. Aimed at establishing a toe-hold on Italian soil, it was expected that the Sicilian landings would speed Italy's exit from the war and, by removing Axis airfields and naval bases on the island. further secure the valuable Mediterranean supply route to the East.

Fiction?
Nevertheless, there were those amongst the Allied commanders - notably a group known collectively as 'The Island Hoppers' - who were far from satisfied with the strategic plan. With the Axis still rocking on their heels from their disastrous reverses, they argued that waiting till July to strike again was giving the enemy time to regain his balance and reinforce the Mediterranean theatre. Their proposal was to launch an immediate small-scale assault on the poorly defended Aegean islands - a far 'softer' sector of Fascist Europe's underbelly than Sicily.

This audacious plan soon reached the ears of the senior commanders and then Winston Churchill, who immediately warmed to the idea of a swift follow-up blow. He also saw the logic in an operation which would further dismay the Italians, eliminate yet more Axis airfields and which offered the possibility of tempting Turkey to enter the war. 

More cynically, the Allied command saw the opportunity for a grand diversion that could be resourced from the 'leftovers' of the Tunisian campaign. If it succeeded then the benefits could be great; if not - then at least the Axis would be distracted from the true goal: Sicily.

With the general concept of a strike against the Axis-held Aegean islands accepted, the 'Island Hoppers' set about planning the enterprise in detail. The assault was to commence on the eve of the North African victory. It seemed likely therefore, that the Allied Task Force would set sail in early May, 1943. 'Operation Nostalgia', as it was dubbed, would soon be under way.

I find this campaign interesting to play for a number of reasons.

• It includes forces from German, Italy, UK, USA and a smattering of Free French and Greeks.
• It includes the prospect of land, sea and air warfare. 
• Landings on a variety of different sized islands.
• There is scope for skirmish actions as well as larger battles.

This is even before we consider the management of the forces involved on both sides. 

For this to be more successful than my attempts in the past, it is imperative that I create a more efficient way of keeping track of what is going on. My previous attempts, while not necessarily chaotic, they were not tight enough for me to recall who was where etc. 

I have therefore begun by creating new charts for each island that will make it easier to record who is where for the defenders. Something similar will be done for the attackers showing who is in what ships, casualty records, ship repairs etc. I will be using many of the lessons learnt from my Napoleonic campaign to play this one out.

As with the Napoleonic campaign I intend this to be more towards the 'epic' scale in that it will be played over several years. For land forces my intention is to use 6mm with Blitzkrieg Commander rules. For skirmishes, such as special forces raids etc., then I will use my 15mm collection and probably Chain of Command rules.

There are 3 scales for naval. 1/3000 for larger actions, 1/1200 for situations where we have a handful of smaller vessels, and 1/600 for coastal actions involving primarily MTB's etc. Rules are likely to be 'General Quarters 3' for 1/3000 and 1/1200, and 'Action Stations' for 1/600 and possibly 1/1200 if practicable.

Air warfare will be 1/600 with the occasional 1/300 for land ground attack. I am currently looking at 'Bag the Hun' rules by Toofatlardies. Although they look good my main reservation being that they are hexagon based. Aside from the fact that I am not overly fond of square or hexagon based games (too much like boardgames!) there will be the practicalities of incorporating it into my land and sea based games involving ships and ground forces. It would mean purchasing a hexagon mat when I intended to use my terrain boards. I am looking at various options including acquiring hexagon bases from Warbases to establish if there is a reasonably easy way I can use those to determine movement. 

The Theatre of Operations:

This was the original strategic map printed in the magazine.

 

This is my version. Unfortunately the map has transferred badly to jpeg format so my additional hexagon grid has virtually disappeared. The original map printed in the magazine was very small with the hexagon grid almost invisible. My extremely limited IT skills are apparent here but my version is clear enough to work off. The island map, Crete, Cyprus and Egypt were cut from the original map version and I have filled in the gap with a new grid.

I will cover more detail in future posts but briefly, the main invasion forces will be travelling from Egypt and Cyprus including reinforcements.

This is the theatre map taken straight from the magazine and is where most of the action will occur. The red hexagons indicate 'A' class beaches. These are larger beaches where larger forces can be landed. Green hexagons are 'B' beaches which are smaller in size and thus can take fewer troops. All other areas of an island are cliffs or ports. 

Each island has it's own tactical map:

This is by far the largest, Rhodes. The magazine provided plans for this and other large islands. 

The large island 'Karpathos'.

I designed my own for medium and small islands in the same style:

This is a medium island 'Patmos'.

The small island of 'Levitha'

In total there are 8 each of large, medium and small islands plus Rhodes. Each island can contain a certain amount in points of defenders. With regard to size. I intend the large island to fit on my full size 6' x 4'6" board. Medium islands will be approximately 3'9" x 3', and small approximately 2'3" x 1'6". Rhodes is divided into 4 segments, each being one full sized board.

For the last few days I have been going over the orbats and also reminding myself what I have in my collections of ships. 

The land orbats in the magazine articles (designed for Rapid Fire) will largely be maintained for the British and US forces but with some small additions. I am going to enlarge the Axis forces. I found with my previous replays that they were spread too thin unless defence is confined to just a few islands. I wish to include them all!

The air orbats was designed for 1 model = 2 planes. I will change this for 1 to 1 so a squadron will now be a full 12 aircraft. I may add further squadrons for both sides.

The biggest change I intend to make is the sea orbat. There is scope here to include far more ships to make the naval element more interesting. A balance will need to be struck as clearly the campaign will end too quickly if the entire invasion force is sunk in the first few moves. I have yet to finalise this but for the most part, these additions, including planes, will be reinforcements arriving at various random-ish times. 

I have started a new label 'WW2 Operation Nostalgia' so keep an eye on that if you are interested in seeing how this campaign develops.