🅱🅸🅶🅾🆁🆁🅴.🅾🆁🅶Belle météo pour décoller de aéroport de Mersa Matruh (Egypte) “METAR HEMM 110600Z 26008KT CAVOK 24/20 Q1014 NOSIG” : Ce que ça signifie sur https://www.bigorre.org/aero/meteo/hemm/fr #aeroportdemersamatruh #aeroport #mersamatruh #egypte #hemm #muh #metar #aviation #meteoaero #avgeek vl
Not Quite MechanisedCampaigns – First Alamein, Mersa Matruh FSO Game
Second Alamein is a beast of a wargame. I have only managed it at Front Scale Orbat (FSO) on one table by creating a carpark, or by splitting it into two six-player games, north and south. Even then, the north is still a First World War slugfest with tanks and minefields instead of wall-to-wall trenches.
First Alamein is a much looser, shambolic affair with units becoming intermingled and cut off, and it really starts with the delaying actions at MERSA MATRUH¹ and FUKA.²
The fortified port of Mersa Matruh was held by Lieutenant-General Holmes commanding :
X Corps:
10th Indian Infantry Division (10 ID) – 5, 21, 25 Brigades (IB) in the town and at CHARING CROSS covering the minefields.
50th (Northumberland) ID – 1 Greek IB, 69 IB, 151 IB, 2 Free French IB to the east of Mersa Matruh.
To Holmes’ south, a clear coastal plain was screened thinly by mines and two columns of company size called Gleecol and Leathercol from 5 Ind ID. Further south a high escarpment was covered by Lieutenant-General Gott, commanding
XIII Corps :
Ist Armoured Division (AD) – 22 AB, 7 Motorised Brigade (MB), 4 AB from 7 AD.
2 New Zealand ID – 5 NZ IB, 6 NZ IB.
5 Indian ID – 29 Ind IB.
The corps was spread out in customary desert fashion, out of mutual support with the armoured brigades forward and the New Zealanders well to the rear at MINQAR QAIM, level with 50 ID. The corp’s orders unwittingly played into the hands of the Germans – “Resist and disrupt the enemy but withdraw if you are being cut off” – sensible enough, you might think.
Rommel’s plan was simple – race south of Mersa Matruh, to drive the Allied armour off, then envelope X Corps, cutting them off. After a late start on the 26th, it went well enough, with 21st Panzer Division (PzD) cutting the coast road east of GERWALA by the end of the 27th of July and 90th Light Division (90 LD) stalled in front of 151 IB. The Allies managed to extricate the bulk of XIII Corps and more than half of X Corps. Holmes was not best pleased that Gott had withdrawn without him, as he had been attacking south overnight to support units in XIII Corps that had already scarpered. Holmes felt that he could have held Mersa Matruh, with or without XIII Corps, but he was ordered to break out and withdraw to Fuka, where he lost more troops to the Germans who had arrived first. The Germans certainly felt that the British had snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, and the supplies that they captured from the ports of Mersa Matruh and Fuka helped them to mount First Alamein.
XX1 Corps – 27 ID ‘Brescia’, 102 MD ‘Trento’. Enveloped the west of Mersa Matruh.
Deutsches Afrika Korps (DAK)³- 21 PzD, 90 LD, 133 AD ‘Littorio’. This group pushed down the plain.
Italian XX Motorised Corps – 132 AD ‘Ariete’, 101 MD ‘Trieste’, 15 PzD. This group pushed along the high escarpment to the south.
Feisler Storch Fi156. (1937), [STOL Army Cooperation]. All Fronts. (Tankzone model from the Author’s collection)
I shall try the battle at FSO, but using Corps Scale Orbat (CSO) to give bulk to the troops. If the table is too crowded when it is laid out, it will just be FSO. (Spoiler – I used FSO and it was still crowded! 2/4/25)
Footnotes