1943: Tunisia - The Verdun of Mediterranean
In Libya Montgomery and his 8th Army, the famous desert rats, race through across the Eastern Desert until finally being brought to a halt by Rommel at the "Mareth Line" where he was dug in and tried to end his long retreat from Egypt.
Fortunately for him the 8th Army was almost at the very end of its supply chain which brought its rapid advance to a screeching halt until ports in Libya were repaired and supply dumps created closer to the Tunisia border. Meanwhile in the west the Allied 1st Army had landed in Morocco and Algeria on November 8th and had rolled up both countries in the face of only sporadic Vichy resistance and light German defenses.
However, Hitler was determined to make Tunisia the cornerstone of the Axis defense of North Africa, swearing to turn it into the Verdun of the Mediterranean. General Arnim was immediately sent to take command of the German and Italian forces in Tunisia and to sieze it from the French before they could switch sides and turn it over to the Americans and the British, as they had just done in the "Darlan Deal" for Morocco and Algeria.
All told Arnim had 110,000 troops, 200 tanks (with some of the new Panthers present) and Flieger Korps II had been reinforced to 445 combat aircraft and 637 transport aircraft. Facing this in the west was the Allied 1st Army made up of green American troops, unreliable French divisions (freshly come over from the Vichy regime), and fresh British divisions new to North Africa.
The western airforce made up of both USAAF and RAF was untried and had yet to develop the command structure and tactics that the Desert Air Force in the East had developed after several hard years of warfare. While in the east stood the battle hardened 8th Army eager to finally end their long tour of duty in Africa with only the German and Italian forces in Tunisia standing in their way.
This FSO will recreate the conquest of Tunisia by the Allies in 1943.
PLANESET:
SPECIAL RULES:
- FIGHTER ALT CAP - 20K
- All Bomb Carrying Aircraft ALT CAP - 14K
- P-38G - 1,000LB BOMBS DISABLED
SCORING:
OBJECT SCORING:
SETTINGS:
- Tunisia terrain
- Icon Range - Friendly 3k, Enemy 3k.
- No Radar
- Fighter and Bomber Warning Range - 79200 (15 miles)
- Tower Range - 79,200 (for display to match the above Fighter and Bomber Warning)
- External view for bombers (F3) - On
- Friendly Collisions - Off
- Enemy Collisions - On
- Kill Shooter - Off
- Fuel - 1.0
- Ack - 0.3
- Formations - Enabled
- Bombsite calibration - Main Arena Standard
- Clouds - Light5k.awa
- Time:
FRAME 1 - 0900
FRAME 2 - 1200
FRAME 3 - 1500
- Object Downtime - full (200)
Original Design - Ghostdancer 2007
Updated by Nefarious 2023