At Last, a Yom Kippur War Game!

After some months of collecting and painting my own Egyptian and Israeli forces for the 1973 Yom Kippur War, I'm finally hosting a game*, set in the Sinai during the latter part of the war. The Israelis have crossed the Suez and are wreaking some havoc in the rear areas of the Egyptian army, basically trying to do all they can before the inevitable ceasefire.

I've set up a pretty straightforward three-objective game: the objectives being the SA-2 Guideline SAM at bottom, the house at centre, and the well in the courtyard at top. The Egyptians start with an infantry section and ISU-152 near the SAM but otherwise the forces start off-table. We used Bolt Action 3rd Ed for the game, leaving the movement and weapons ranges the same despite the models being 15mm rather than 28mm. I think it looks cooler that way.

  

The SAM with attendant infantry and SP howitzer.

The Israelis had four infantry squads in M3 halftracks, two weapons sections and the command squad in a fifth halftrack, three M51 Ishermans and four Magach-6 tanks. They faced three Egyptian infantry sections, two DShK HMG teams, two AT-3 Sagger ATGW teams, three T-62s and five T-55 tanks.

Egyptian infantry rushes towards the centre objective.

Conscript Mike picking out reinforcements coming on-table while Conscript Dave surveys the landscape.

Two Magach-6s and more infantry reinforce the attack on the SAM position.

DShK teams move up to join the infantry in the centre while Egyptian tanks sweep to the left to support the SAM position.

IDF infantry deploys in the wadi and open up on the Egyptian infantry.

 

Meanwhile, the Egyptian infantry occupies the objective and the DShK teams deploy in support.

Around the SAM position the original Egyptian infantry section was wiped out but a reinforcing section arrives from reserve.

Having taken the far objective (well) the IDF sweeps towards the centre. The Egyptians were all set to unload on the advancing IDF infantry but they were hosed off with supporting fire. Nice coordination!

IDF infantry rushes the ground floor of the building. This is where they'd end the game.

Over on the Israeli left the IDF infantry have taken the well objective with the heavy weapons sections and command squad. Their FN MAGs, light mortars and Blindicide rocket launchers have reached out and touched some Egyptian assets but have taken a few pins and casualties as well.

On the other flank the Israeli assault has kind of stalled - the infantry in the wadi were cut up by the Egyptian infantry that's now close enough to control the SAM objective. After much discussion the Israelis decided not to send their infantry up - they'd end up too far away to contest the objective before the end of the game. 

The M51 Ishermans pounded away at the opposing T-62 and succeeded in immobilizing it.

Egyptian tanks sweep around the centre objective and knock out a distant Magach-6.

Takeaways: it was a really good looking game (IMHO) but maybe a bit on the big side for a Thursday Bolt Action scrap, there were 14 or 15 order dice per side which is a lot for us. After the first turn I decided to allow activation of a tank TROOP on one dice which sped things up a bit. 

There weren't as many burning tanks as I would have liked to see either. I'd based the BA stats on relative gun/armour stats for the models in Fate of a Nation, the Flames of War Arab-Israeli wargame. The 115mm guns of the Egyptians were penetration 8+, the 100mm and 105mm guns, and Saggers, were penetration 7+, the Blindicides and RPG-7s were penetration 5+. As for armour I rated the Shermans as Medium tanks (9+), T-55s and T-62s as Heavy tanks (10+), and the Magach-6s as 11+ armour. So an AT-3 (if it hit) would glance a Sherman on a 2 and penetrate on 3+, or glance a Magach-6 on a 4 and penetrate on a 5+, all from the front. Comments welcome.

All in all a fun time and I think for the next one I might turn up the AT weapons a bit and make the game a bit smaller. But this one was fun and looked great.

Shalom and yo'um said!    
 

*of course Conscript Greg has an amazing collection of YKW stuff and has staged many games, including our Prairiecon game that made it into Wargames Illustrated! But this was the first YKW game staged with the models all painted by me :-)