'O' Group: The Battle for Tel Al Fal

Unfortunately life, the universe and general laziness on my part has led to the blog not getting the TLC it deserves, despite there being several AAR's sat in the drafts folder. I will endeavour to finish as many as possible asap, this one being from a great game played back in the spring...

Following the games of 'O' Group set during the Six Day War played at Winter Wonderlard IV I was contacted by one of the players, Peregrine, who asked if he could play it again and bring along a friend, Nigel. No problem and I roped in Andy to help...

Based on a scenario in the old Bruce Rea-Taylor Battlezones booklet for Challenger (published in the early 1980's by TTG), both the Israeli A/82nd Tank Battalion and Jordanian 2nd Battalion, 60th Armoured, are trying to capture the key village of Tel Al Fal along the Ramallah-Jerusalem highway. We randomly diced for sides with Peregrine ending up with the Jordanians (having come up with a cunning plan for the IDF!) and Nigel taking command of the Israelis with Andy.

With the IDF occupying Beth Hanina to the north-west, the Jordanians pushed a company of M47's and FOO in a Land Rover forward towards Tel Al Fal from the south-east.

The IDF adopted a pincer attack with one company of M-50 Shermans advancing on the village from the north-east...

With a second pushing up to the north of the target.

However they were not as speedy as the Jordanians who swiftly got armour and infantry support in Saracens into the woods just south of Tel Al Fal.

The first Jordanian Combat Patrol entered the village...

But was beaten off by Israeli mortar fire.

However this did not stop the Jordanians deploying infantry into Tel Al Fal.

With the infantry beginning to invest the village, the Jordanians pushed a platoon of M47's forward to engage the advancing IDF M-50's.

One platoon of IDF armour being quickly despatched.

Fire was exchanged between the Jordanian and Israeli armour, the IDF damaging one M47 section (one tank model, represents two tanks in real life, so Damaged means one tank out of two is knocked out).

An IDF platoon accumulating two Shock in return.

Although not at 100% effectiveness the Jordanian armour had a good position on the hill able to cover most of the eastern flank.

The next order phase though threw the Jordanians a curve ball as one of the tank companies rolled badly and became Hesitant, not able to advance towards the enemy.

Somewhat ironically, the same happened to the Israelis!

Meanwhile the IDF paratroops had deployed just to the north of the village and engaged the Jordanian infantry in the buildings.

Though the loss of more armour saw the Israelis incurred their first FUBAR (normally three of these spells defeat for an army in a game, but in this scenario the Israelis could accumulate four before defeat).

In the village, the IDF paras decide to assault the Jordanian defenders...

Charging in and inflicting three Shock on one Jordanian infantry platoon, Suppressing it.

Following that up and forced the Jordanian unit to retreat to the southern half of the village.

However to the east the IDF armour was not faring well as it tried to advance on Tel Al Fal...

And soon the Israelis picked up a second FUBAR and not far off a third (you get one for every four sections lost)...

However Jordanian fortunes were soon to change as the Israeli FOO called in an attack on the south of the village...

A lucky dice roll bringing in air support from two Dassault MD.450 Ouragans!

The first Ouragan inflicted Shock on one Jordanian unit and Suppressed another...

Before the second Ouragan flew in...

Wiping out the Suppressed infantry platoon and inflicting more Shock on the other.

Following the devastating airstrike up, the IDF paras charged the remaining Jordanians...

And wiped them out.

All of a sudden the Jordanians had gone from no FUBAR's to two - one more and they would be defeated!

If the infantry were not going to win the battle, Peregrine decided his armour must and he advanced his second company of M47's towards the IDF armour north of the village.

The unerring accuracy of the M47's swiftly destroying one M-50 section and Damaging a second.

Pushing forward up the western flank...

The Jordanian battalion HQ issued a Command Order to keep the pressure on the IDF...

In Orders terms this proved costly...

But saw more IDF armour brewed up! 

Things were starting to get incredibly tense with both sides now just one FUBAR away from defeat...

The M47's continued to decimate the M-50's and we were now in a position that the next casualty to either side would result in a FUBAR and defeat.

The IDF paras moved down the slope to try and pick off an M47 with a bazooka...

Whilst one of the few remaining M-50 platoons managed to come up on the flank of the advancing Jordanian armour...

Their first shot missed, but fortunately for Nigel and Andy the second shot was devastatingly effective!

The M47 loss resulted in a third, and final, FUBAR for the Jordanians! They were defeated and the IDF had managed (as they did historically) to seize the village of Tel Al Fal, though it was close run thing.

Well that was tense, going right down to the wire and could have been won by either side. Whilst 'O' Group was written with WW2 Infantry actions in mind, it does work well for more tank heavy games, even ones set some twenty odd years after the period they were designed for. If you are a 6mm gamer I recommend picking a copy up.