French Algeria

Road to BREZINA, ALGERIA, 28 August 1956: At dawn, the Compagnie Portée Saharienne du Djebel Amour left Géryville, going east for 15 kilometers before turning due south. After the small village of Ghassoul, they took the very bad track leading to Brezina. Along the road, a few vehicles suffered from mechanical breakdowns. At the point of entering the narrow pass crossing Djebel Ed-Driss, Captain Dupuis stopped his vehicles, now reduced to Lt d'Arche's platoon, and ordered them to dismount and enter the pass deployed. A squad was thus deployed on both sides of the road, while a third went further away, at the feet of the mountain. The entrance of the pass was reached without problems but suddenly a couple of fellaghas armed with machine pistols popped-up from behind a rock in front of d'Arche asking him to surrender. Reacting swiftly, the Lieutenant rolled to his side and shot his pistol towards them.

At that moment a hellish fire was unleashed on the Saharians who got pinned down. The NCO leading the third squad falls mortally wounded together with the Muslim soldier that was with him. Captain Dupuis immediately called his other platoons, asking them to leave their broken vehicles behind to join him as fast as possible. He also got in touch with the French troops of Brezina, but these were blocked at the other exit of the pass. Due to the dense small arms fire, the French were still pinned down when Dupuis had the chance to contact a pair of T-6 planes that came to his support. Soon, they arrived on the spot and started strafing. This allowed Dupuis to deploy his MGs and mortar. After a short while, the fells disengaged, vanishing in the terrain they knew by heart. Dupuis tried to pursue them but was frustrated in his efforts. Some demolition charges placed along the track were found near the spot where the first Fellaghas appeared, they had to be ignited after the passage of the vehicles to trap them. At least, the worst had been avoided.

CH broke new ground with GENESIS 48, a best-selling module for the line. Since then the ground has been covered, the explorations continued, to LZ X-Ray as well as 1956 and 1967 Arab-Israeli conflicts. And Dien Bien Phu, of course. And as the world's military minds continue to struggle with the intractable problem of insurgencies, to this very day, we know it is high time that your tactical-level gaming IQ be put to the test in some of the roughest terrain every fought over in this contest of European will and North African stealth, long before the West truly grasped the capabilities of a new kind of foe. This is all brand new to one and all, and brings more never before published CH military art to the fore, as the ALN and post Indochina French paratroopers slug it out, in a never-ending battle that lasted until 1962.