GALLIPOLI SQUARED

 Once again it was back to Gallipoli with another Square Bashing playtest. This time I wanted the Turks to be the attackers, so we abandoned the pregame but substituted a quick start procedure, which I devised, so the outcomes part of the pregame was still used.

British depletions with the obligatory 1 in 3 battalions consigned to the reinforcement area.
Along with 2 machine gun companies and a 18pdr field gun battery.

The Turks also had 4 battalions consigned to the reinforcement area
 - as they didn't fit onto the table.

The attackers are confined to a deployment zone, which consists of a single row of squares. This results in the attacker being spread out in an extended line and in the case of large armies, like the Turks, units had to be left off table.

Turkish centre

The British left and centre were relatively heavily defended with buildings and hasty defences backed up with machine guns and guns.

British left

By contrast, the British centre right  was weakly held and an obvious target for the Ottoman assault. 

Weak British centre right

The British plan was to try and delay the Turkish attack, with a suppressing barrage, hopefully buying enough time to deploy hasty defences in the centre.

As I would be relying on my assets roll, I elected the Assets Stance for my Higher Command.

The Turks advanced across the board on a broad front and then rolled for
reinforcements - 6s needed. Oh dear, not a good start.

With Turkish reinforcements massing in the centre it was time to bring down
the suppressing barrage. Thankfully, it was successful and stopped the advance.

The Turks respond with a point barrage on my weak centre.

With the resumption of the Turkish advance, the British struggled to reinforce the centre. It was time to deploy the hasty defences but, despite having the 'asset' Higher Command stance, I failed the roll.

The Turks storm the hill, from front and flank, with the bayonet.
Throwing back the badly mauled defenders.

A nicely timed point barrage, by the British, shores up the crumbling defence.

The Turks retreat under fire from the British guns.

At this point, after two consecutive rolls of 6 for the countdown, the game came to an abrupt end.

A stalemate and a lucky outcome for the British

All in all this was an excellent and enjoyable game. I do have some reservations about whether or not this is a good representation of WW1 warfare, but I'll leave off commenting until later. First it's on to the trench game.....