The Second Battle of Mechili (Part 1: Background)
Background to the Battle
Rommel Leads from the Front
The Second Battle of Mechili fits into the more "amateurish" stage of the Desert War in 1940-41, when relatively small armies charged across Cyrenaica, often with obsolete equipment, without inflicting serious casualties on the other side, if you exclude prisoners. This began to change with the arrival of the Afrika Korps and, I would argue, definitively changed with Operation Crusader, in which some serious and bloody fighting took place.
Mechili is an interesting and unusual battle for a number of reasons. First, it involved a concentric attack by four different battle groups on a fort in the middle of nowhere; second, it was effectively a race against time for the British garrison as they sought to escape a tightening noose of Axis forces; third, there were few armoured vehicles involved in the actual fighting; fourth, although Rommel was present, he curiously decided to fly off in his Fieseler Storch the morning of the battle; and finally, in one of the few such instances during the Desert War, the British commanding officer, General Gambier-Parry, surrendered to an Italian Officer, Colonel Ugo Montemurro.
Captured British Generals (Gambier-Parry on right)
In 1941 Mechili was an important staging post from Tobruk on the desert track across the Cyrenaica "bulge", with freshwater wells. The British attacked Mechili during Operation Compass in their drive to the coast at Beda Fomm, resisted initially stoutly by the Italians who perhaps unwisely decided to withdraw rather than make a serious stand. In 1941 Mechili effectively consisted of one large old Turkish fort with distinctive circular crenelated turrets, possibly with the odd hovel or two around it, located next to the dominating feature of the Wadi Al-Rahmid, which runs North to South. There were sand blown entrenchments to the North and South of the fort, elevations to the North East and South East and rough ground to the North West. Tracks converged on Mechili from Tobruk to the East, Benghazi to the West, Derna and Giovanni Berta to the North and Tengender to the South. A makeshift landing ground was located a couple of kilometres to the South East. You can see the outline of many of these features on Google Earth, a screenshot of which is shown below. There is still evidence of the entrenchments and numerous outlines of sangars. The fort was located just above and to the West of the main road crossing the Wadi, although there are now few remains of its existence.
A Google Earth Image of Mechili Today
Fortunately there is also a period map available created by the US Military, which records the features of the battlefield at the time and I used a simplified version of this to create a battlefield map.
A Period Military Map of Mechili
At the time of the battle, powerful Axis reinforcements were arriving from the West and South. The British knew they were effectively encircled and had been given orders to break out towards Tobruk. The terrain North was deemed unsuitable, although this seems odd given the available tracks. Certainly an escape Eastwards offered the most direct route back to Tobruk, although the British also knew this was more heavily defended.
At the time of writing, the Imperial War Museum is sadly closed because of Covid-19, so I have not been able to access the history of the 2nd Lancers (Gardner's Horse), who fought at Mechili, in its collection, in order to cross check the other sources I have used. The author, Brigadier EWD Vaughan, commanded the 3rd Indian Motor Brigade at Mechili. There is, fortunately, an excellent account of the battle by Barton Maughan in the Australian Official History of WW2, which is available online here
The Second Battle of Mechili forms the basis of a scenario in the excellent Blaze Across the Sands ("BATS") collection from Alex Macris, designed to be used with Arty Conliffe's Spearhead rules. These are ideal for 6mm gaming. This scenario was the initial inspiration for me, although I made some modifications based on researching the battle. The best ORBAT source is Frank Chadwick's handbook, The Benghazi Handicap, which covers The Desert War 1940-1941 in exhaustive detail. There are quite a few differences between Frank's ORBATS and those in Blaze Across the Sands (which I was recently informed was published prior to Benghazi Handicap), the main discrepancies, together with some other scenario variations, being as follows:
Axis Battlegroups
These are described in BATS as KG Schwerin, Colonna Fabris and Colonna Montemurro. In fact, there were 4 Axis battlegroups involved in the battle: Streich, Schwerin (incorporating Colonna Santamaria), Fabris and Montemurro. These will be more fully described in the ORBATs published in the second post. A further battlegroup, Olbrich, arrived late in the day from the West, while various stragglers of KG Streich, including some of the unit's tanks, turned up too late to fight because of mechanical breakdowns. Frank Chadwick records that only 8 German tanks actually turned up at the battle. Some Italian L3/33 tankettes may also have been present.
British Forces
The BATS British ORBAT seems basically correct, but there are a few points missing. First, there is documentary evidence that the British did have a few support weapons other than anti-tank portees, including a 25pdr Field Gun, a Bofors Gun and a Vickers Machine Gun section. These are either referred to in Barton Maughan's account or visible in period photographs, such as this image of a Bofors Gun after the battle. While the BATS ORBAT specifies 2 pdr anti-tank guns, it seems that all of the Portees were in fact 37mm Bofors, partly as a result of the prevailing shortage of trucks big enough to mount the 2 pdr. A number of these guns were emplaced to defend the fort rather than mounted on their trucks.
A Bofors Gun Abandoned At Mechili
I included a stand of each of these support weapons in the British ORBAT but restricted to 1 fire turn, to allow for their limited numbers and likely ammunition shortages.
Set Up and Unit Attachments
The major flaw, in my view, in the BATS scenario lies in the restrictions imposed on the British forces, whose Australian anti-tank portees are not permitted to attach out. Barton Maughan's account of the battle is strikingly different. The British break out plan involved the creation of a box formation with advance guard, main body, flank guards and rear guard, to which units were attached out as the commanders thought fit.
In addition, Axis forces had been intermittently bombarding the British from fixed gun lines for a couple of days and the British had aggressively patrolled a defensive perimeter around the fort. They essentially knew where the Axis gun lines were before the battle. The BATS scenario envisages an attack by Axis forces with no forces set up on the table. More on this later.
Battlefield Map
My battlefield map, equating roughly to the actual 6x4 feet tabletop, is a simplified version of the period military map, also using the information available from Google Earth, as shown below. The fort itself is slightly to the left of centre of the tabletop compared to the BATS battlefield map, partly to allow for the likely focus of action to the East of the fort, and my table being 6x4 rather than the larger square dimensions required for the BATS scenario.
Mechili Scenario Battlefield Map
Map Key:
Red Solid Line: British Defensive Perimeter
Yellow Solid Line: Fort
Yellow Dashes: Entrenchments
Green Dashes: Wadis
Blue Dashes: Elevations
Green Solid Lines: Rough Ground
Black/Brown Dashes: Tracks
The resulting table top is shown below, with British forces occupying the fort a couple of days before the battle. Rommel surveyed the fort in his Storch at that time and I like to think the view may have been broadly similar!
The Table Top (viewed from Rommel's Storch!)
A short note on the two what ifs I introduced to the scenario. The first concerns the LRDG. A squadron was operating around Mechili at the time and visited the fort for fuel replenishment before the battle. This unit is included in the British ORBAT but with a fairly remote chance of being involved. Certainly there were operational discussions with the Mechili forces as to their deployment at the time and they succeeded in capturing some prisoners, so I think this is an interesting, if unlikely, angle to the scenario.
Second, I have allowed Rommel the option of participating in the battle personally, with the benefits and potential dangers this brings under the BATS "leading from the front rules" (see next post). It seems odd that Rommel decided to fly off in his Storch the morning of the battle, particularly as Streich, the commander on the ground, was not one of his favourites, based on their service together in the French campaign.
The second post on Mechili will include specific ORBATs and rules particular to this scenario. The remaining posts will cover the refight itself.
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