A diversion to the Spanish Civil War ….

After our SYW battle from the weekend before we had another Saturday battle planned in. Martin has been building a Spanish Civil war collection in 10mm and we agreed to give this a run out in the dungeon. Unfortunately not a period I know much about and with my RCW collection it currently feels like a project ‘too far’ ? Anyway Martin developed a simple scenario to utilise all the available forces. Out of interest we would be using bolt action with some slight modifications to ranges, basically reducing hand held guns but keeping movement the same to give a fast paced battle.

Very roughly based on a real map but perhaps more like generic northern Spain, I took this photo the evening before you may notice it doesn’t have any buildings in the villages. These were supplied by Martin and you will see them in the following photos. The nationalists will be attacking from the south/left, the republicans defending and attempting to prevent a break through towards Bilbao. With the caveat that I don’t know much about the period the photos will have to describe the action.

My republican force, the International Brigade digs in to hold the river crossings.

Huge convoys of Nationalist infantry arrive in trucks.

Republicans are also holding the village of Vallesa

The international brigade are sent forward to block the valley road, antitank guns by the church open up but one is knocked out by accurate mortar fire

Another antitank gun by Vallesa is also knocked out by artillery firing across the valley from San Christoval, but not before it was able to knock out the leading nationalist tank.

A fierce fight in the narrow valley blocking the advance 

Some much needed Republican reserves arrive, in the middle distance our artillery opens up counter battery fire across the valley

Armed with Molotov cocktails my infantry manage to knock out one of the advancing tanks but they are then attacked from across the river

Nationalists advance across the open valley past the village a big danger they will overrun our position

Things are looking thin close to the bridge as well, infantry support is being rushed from the village to support the defence

Finally after several failed activation test the Republican tanks find their way to the battlefield bolstering my right and with the support of some cavalry the nationalist advance is thrown back hoorah !

But things are going badly by the bridges as the international brigade has been wiped out, the leading enemy tank is burning on the bridge hit by one of our BT6’s

With the second enemy tank now burning things briefly improve but there is too much enemy infantry to hold here

Stalemate in the centre, the nationalists face a tough fight if they want to cross the river and assault the village, at this point we drew things to a close with a draw, the republicans have clearly lost the left flank and the bridges, but thrown back the assault on their right. With the centre in stalemate a draw seemed a good result for the Republicans.

One point of note the Nationalist general had been fighting on the left, with his forces thrown back in confusion he was very lucky to escape with his life, one failed activation by the republican cavalry saved his skin as he hides behind the village.

A fun diversion into the SCW thanks Martin for pulling the collection together.

Thanks as always for checking in 👍