The Battle of Karakilise 1918

 Jon and I decided to fight the Karakilise scenario from the iOGroup files. The scenario pitches two Turkish divisions against a reinforced Armenian division, in a battle that took place in 1918. We had to 'proxy' German figures for the Turkish corps, and British and Russian figures for the Armenians. The battle does not have defenders entrenched. The battle was of course played using the Great War Spearhead rules.

The battlefield at the beginning - the Turkish infantry advance form the left, the Armenian troops are in position on or behind a line roughly along the length of the table, on the right

The Armenian right flank

The Armenian centre and left

The Turkish Corps advancing from the left, turn 1

Turn 3, and first contact

Turkish right flank of 2 Division on the Corp' right

The Turkish extreme left advancing against the Armenian right in woods and on the heights

 

Turkish centre, the regiment back from the advance (on the left) is held in reserve. The river is the divisional boundary between the two Turkish divisions.

The Turkish right flank division, its left regiment advancing, while the divisional reserve for this Division has also been held back in reserve

Opening shots.. ambush fire as the Armenian defenders were previously unlocated, so no return Turkish fire

Artillery and small arms fire hitting the 2 Division left flank regiment

On the other side of the river (the divisional boundary for the Turkish Corps) the 1 Division right flank regiment takes heavy fire and casualties

Turkish left flank also heavily engaged by artillery and small arms fire. A regiment of Armenian artillery can be seen on the heights top centre firing down on the Turkish attackers

Most of the Turkish artillery failed to respond to requests for fire

Turkish fire starts to fall on the Armenian defenders, (top centre) most firmly ensconced in woods

Casualties are mounting on 2 Division left flanking regiment

The Turkish 1 Division right flank regiment is decimated, but passes its moral check

The 1 Division reserve has been committed and advances to apply additional pressure

Heavy casualties also mounting on the 1 Division left flank regiment

The view at table top from the extreme right Turkish flank

We stopped the game after only four turns. The Turkish Corp had sustained almost two regiments worth of casualties, while eliminating just one Armenian stand.

I planned the Turkish attack. We opted to use a mechanism from Keith McNelly's scenario generation system framework where Jon deployed the infantry regiment HQs before I drew attack arrows. He was then able to move HQ stands by up to 150mm before deploying the regiments. This aims to simulate pre battle reconnaissance, and the fog of war with its errors./inaccuracies.

I opted not to attempt the offered flank march. Any flank march would have needed to be a 'deep' flank march, so requiring a roll of 5 or 6 for any flank marching regiment to arrive. It is all too easy for flank marching troops to never arrive, so reducing the combat effectiveness of the attack. Yep, that has happened to me before. I wanted maximum attack strength if I was to eliminate the defenders. That said, I wasn't exactly subtle in my plan, and didn't 'bound' through the terrain. However that is difficult to coordinate at this scale.

In the context of four game turns, only one Turkish off table artillery regiment came into action. Two of the attacking regiments (the two reserve regiments) had on board artillery regiments attached, and I opted to brigade these with a FO. These had not come into action when we called the game. The impact of the Turkish artillery was negligible.

I should have tried to use smoke, or even preplanned artillery fire, as a part of my plan.

Our thoughts:

Most 'gamers want a game where it is actually possible for both sides to win. The Turkish attack is doomed to failure, the victory conditions as posited are unattainable. The Turks have only a small numerical advantage, advancing against a defending enemy which certainly doesn't have prepared positions, but hardly needs it.

We considered amended the victory conditions  In the scenario as published, the Turkish forces have to eliminate all of the Armenians in order to win. Impossible, we think. We looked at the idea of requiring the Turks to be able to exit forces from the Armenian side of the table, along the road, with the road not under any direct fire. This too was basically not possible.

The OOB rates the Armenians as  a 'partisans' corp. What does that mean? Green morale rating instead f the regular as stated? That would have made no difference. We also rated them as 'Serbians' from a data card perspective. Yes? No? What would happen of the Armenians suffered reduced combat capability instead? For example, fighting stands AI=4, MMGs AI=5 etc

It was good to get figures out on the table, all from my 20mm army collections. We are both very rusty at planning and game play, and also felt that the scenario itself while undoubtedly historically accurate, could benefit from some modification to make a more playable wargame.