Suez '73 - The Battle of Chinese Farm (1981)

[Crossroads]

Retro Warning!  :timeout:

Having said that, boy oh boy, finally found a seller willing to whisk a copy over the pond to Euroland!

The Israeli crossing of Suez Canal during the 1973 war is one of the great battles out there still not really well known with the uneducated wargaming masses (not referring to you dear Grogs, of course I am not). I've had my eyes on this game for such a long time I bought it the second my Noble Knight Games alert told me about it.

And of course, suddenly they had two of them, one for a twenty note, and one for 18 bucks with a warning "counters clipped". Now, if it would have said "counters clipped with a Oregon Lam clipper", I would have gotten that one even at double pace, but alas, stay safe out there peeps and all that.

This is such a remarkable game, it ships for instance with Order of Battle sheets for both sides (remember this is an Arab-Israeli conflict where OOBs are notoriously difficult to obtain even now), formation sheets where you can build them, rulebook and historical notes, a beautiful map, and all this from 1981 



But yeah, talking about under appreciated military operations. Even the box talks about the Battle of Chinese Farm, which was just a one flank of the operation. Well, a crucial flank at that as the route for the pontoon bridges went next to the area, so hardly insignificant either.

But yet, the crossing of Suez Canal, just weeks after beginning of hostilities, which you might recall went nothing but per scripts for the IDF, with Egyptian forces well trained, well armed, and tanks no longer the kings of the battle field they used to be. That's the main event here.

I just finished reading Crossing Suez a couple of months ago, and if there is a case study you want to read about Friction (with capital F), you could do worse than grap that book from Amazon. Amazing stuff, how the Israelis ever managed to pull the crossing among confusion, internal fighting among big egos, and yes, friction, ...

Next, time to set it up...  :bd: