FOW – Rocking the Kasbah, November 1942

We continued our Morocco-Tunisia theme by playing the final assault on the Kasbah at Mehdia, Morocco.

According to Rick Atkinson’s “An Army at Dawn,” the “Kasbah” was a 16th Century fort that overlooked the Sebou River.  Until the guns in the fort were silenced, the Americans could not move upriver to Port Lyautey.  Instead of simply shelling the Vichy French defenders into submission, General Truscott ordered the fort to be taken “with cold steel.”  Five U.S. assaults were repulsed.  Our scenario would represent the sixth and final assault, which was a good sized game for the four players that we had.

Our terrain set up was informed by satellite images of the area and modern photos of the fort, which is open to the public.  The fort stands on a scrub-covered bluff overlooking some ancient ruins and the river to the north.  South of the fort the terrain is flat, and features some walled cemeteries, some houses, and some sparse vegetation.  The main gate of the fort and a secondary gate face south.  Another secondary gate is located on the western wall near the northwest corner.  The interior of the fort is mostly open, except for a central barracks area and a mosque.  To provide some additional interior cover, we assumed that there were ground-level galleries along the walls, facing inward.  To model the fort, we used two desert forts from Battlefront, plus a set of town walls and buildings from Crescent Root.

We needed some special rules to govern the effects of the fort in our game.  We ruled that defenders on the battlements would be in bulletproof cover from direct fire coming from outside the fort, and could be close assaulted from outside the fort (via close range small arms fire and grenades), even though the attackers could not climb the walls.  The fort could only be entered via a breached gate or a breached wall.  The gates could be breached by two successful hits in close assault (each gate could be assaulted by a maximum of two teams per turn, and combat engineers received a +1 to hit bonus).  The gates could also be breached by point blank fire from two 105mm howitzers, which required a penetration on a roll of 1-3 and then a successful firepower roll of 3+.  The 105mm howitzers could also breach a wall section on a penetration roll of 1, followed by a successful firepower roll.  The 105mm howitzers could only use direct fire — they were too close to use indirect fire.  The four heavy French guns within the fort were in weapons pits facing the river and had no effect on the game.  Finally, to better represent the ground scale for this small battle, we doubled the maximum firing ranges, so that rifles and machine guns could shoot all the way across the fort.

The French defenders were represented by two infantry companies supported by heavy machine guns.  The French were rated Confident/Aggressive/Trained at the start, but their morale would drop to Reluctant once the Americans entered the fort.  Any Reluctant French unit that failed a motivation test to counterattack after being assaulted would surrender.  All the French units were deployed inside the fort, mostly on the battlements.

The American attackers had one standard rifle company (Confident/Aggressive/Trained) with three rifle platoons plus a weapons platoon.  This company was deployed to attack the two secondary gates on the western and southern faces of the wall.  A “provisional” assault company composed of cooks, clerks, and drivers (Confident/Aggressive/Green) had three rifle platoons, and was supported by a combat engineer platoon, an 81mm mortar platoon, and two 105mm howitzers.  These forces were deployed to attack the main gate.  The French entrenchments outside the fort had already been captured, so we allowed the Americans to begin the game dug in.

Unknown to the French, an American airstrike was scheduled to arrive on Turn Four; this would be represented by four bombing attacks.

The American objective was to eliminate or capture all of the French defenders by the end of ten turns.  If the French could hold out through Turn 10, they would “preserve the honor of France” and win the game.

The first four turns passed quickly, as the Americans did not want to get near the fort until the scheduled airstrike had arrived.  The Americans bided their time by peppering the defenders on the battlements with small arms, mortar, and bazooka fire, which knocked out a few rifle teams and machine guns.  French return fire was much lighter and had little effect on the dug in Americans.  Rather than continuing to suffer this unequal exchange, the French commanders pulled their men off the battlements into the interior of the fort.

During this firefight, the 105mm howitzers quickly breached the main gate and then turned their attention to the walls.  Two lucky hits soon breached the wall on both sides of the gate.

The airstrike arrived as scheduled on Turn 4.  The bombing attacks produced few casualties but did pin all of the defenders.

On Turn 5 the American attack started in earnest.  The rifle company assaulted and breached the two undefended secondary gates, then started filtering rifle teams and LMG teams into the fort, clearing the French defenders from the galleries along the walls as they advanced. 

At the same time, the provisional assault company and the engineers charged through the breaches at the main gate.  This attack was repulsed and pinned down by heavy fire from the defenders, and required a few turns to regroup.  To cover them, U.S. mortars began shelling the defenders in the mosque.

The French defenders in the galleries along the southern, western, and northern walls were willing to surrender as they were contacted, but the defenders in the galleries along the eastern wall, in the mosque, and in the central barracks were made of sterner stuff, encouraged by their company commanders and the overall commandant of the fort.  As the end drew near, the Americans prepared for one big push on the last turn of the game.

To provide cover for the final assault, the American mortars dropped a smoke bombardment in front of the mosque and eastern wall.  This enabled the remnants of the combat engineer platoon with the company commander to cross the open ground and make it into assault against the eastern wall.  At the same time, the rifle company stormed the barracks from three sides.  Due to a lack of coordination in the heat of battle, nobody attacked the mosque, but if the French could be eliminated from the other two locations, French morale would collapse and the Americans would win.

We resolved the fights in the barracks first, where the Americans prevailed, eventually capturing the few remaining defenders.  The fight at the eastern wall was much closer.  The iron will of the fort commandant kept the French in the combat for several rounds.  Both sides lost teams until the Americans were left with only their company commander in the fight, who was then slain by the French commandant!  The French were left with two platoons with only three rifle teams total, plus the commandant himself.  Those two platoons then had to pass their “last stand” motivation checks, which they did, resulting in a glorious French victory!

After preserving the honor of France, the commandant solemnly surrendered the fort, and then posed for the cameras, along with his dog, basking in the glory of it all…!

• TJ