Desert War – Detailed Sources for OOBs, Strengths, Losses etc.

[Whirlwind]

I am beginning to do some work on the Desert campaign in preparation for gaming it in the future.  I have quite a lot of general histories but I would be interested to know if anyone has any recommendations for more detailed stuff, ideally with lots of wargamer-friendly things in, like detailed orders of battle, strengths, equipment holdings and so on.  I have all the Nafzigers plus a smattering of other things, but could use some further recommendations.

[John D Salt]

I expect you’re already aware of it, but just in case, and for the benefit of other readers, I recommend a gander at The Crusader Project:

Table of Contents

On the one hand, as the name suggests, it concentrates on Operation Crusader; on the other, it covers an awful lot more than just orbat information, and I believe updates traditional historical understandings on numerous points of the history in useful and important ways.

Full disclosure: the main author of the site, Andreas Bierman, is an old and very good friend of mine.

All the best,

John.

[MartinR]

My one stop shop for early period desert war (Compass to Crusader) is Frank Chadwicks “Benghazi Handicap”, specifically aimed at wargaming.

Of the numerous desert war histories, Green and Massignanis “Rommels North African Campaign”  is pretty good on OBs etc, as is George Fortys “Armies of Rommel”. I also have a sift spot for FM Lord Carvers elderly “Tobruk” which covers the siege, Battle Axe, Brevity, Crusader and Gazala. An operational focus.

 

 

"Mistakes in the initial deployment cannot be rectified" - Helmuth von Moltke

[Whirlwind]

Many thanks both.  I had seen the website, although I have not yet fully explored it!  Books now on order…

[deephorse]

A second vote for “Benghazi Handicap”.  Whilst I don’t game North Africa, and never will, I can’t resist collecting information on anything to do with WWII and so I own a copy of it.  I will also suggest the various Rapid Fire books and .pdfs.

https://www.rapid-fire-uk.com/product-category/rapid-fire-books/

https://www.rapid-fire-uk.com/product-category/rapid-fire-pdfs/

 

Whilst obviously aimed at that set of rules the information contained in them should be useful for any rule set.

Play is what makes life bearable - Michael Rosen

[MartinR]

Funnily enough I’m putting on a remote desert game next week and I hastily repainted my L3/35s M11/39s last night  in the pea green /grey green camo described by Chadwick  for 1940. Well it passes the time…

"Mistakes in the initial deployment cannot be rectified" - Helmuth von Moltke

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