Alamein: German Options, Part One
By Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
February 2010

Italian and German troops captured the fortress of Tobruk from its South African defenders on 21 July 1942. German dictator Adolf Hitler celebrated by promoting his commander in North Africa, Erwin Rommel, to field marshal. “I would rather he had given me one more division,” the Desert Fox supposedly remarked on hearing the news.

Rommel did get another division after the fall of Tobruk, but probably not the sort of reinforcement he had in mind. The 164th Infantry Division had been sent to the island of Crete in January 1942 and re-named Fortress Division Crete. The division's newly appointed commander, Lt. Gen. Carl-Hans Lungershausen, gathered the garrison's more combat-fit elements and began transport to Africa, leaving others behind to form Fortress Brigade Crete. Rommel also eventually received a regiment of the 22nd Air-Landing Division, also part of the Greek garrison.

Neither of these reinforcements was likely to smash their way into Cairo and Alexandria. When Rommel made his plaint, he more than likely hoped for a third first-line division: another panzer division or at least a motorized unit. While the newly rechristened 164th Light Africa Division officially was listed as a motorized division, it had not trained for that role nor did it have enough transport to live up to its title. Its troops had seen little combat during the campaigns in France and the Balkans. This was a garrison outfit.

Most of the German Army's strength was deployed on the Eastern Front for the massive operation known as Case Blue. The offensive had opened on 28 June and met with great success, drawing German, Italian, Romanian and Hungarian forces ever deeper into southern Ukraine and the Caucasus region. Even so, Germany did have a handful of divisions suitable for deployment in North Africa that had not been committed to the grand offensive.

The 22nd Air-Landing Division took part in the storming of Sevastopol, suffering heavy casualties in the process. That fortress fell two and a half weeks before Tobruk, and the division was pulled out and ordered to Greece for rest and re-equipment. Its 47th Infantry Regiment and one artillery battalion went to Athens, with the remainder taking up quarters west of Salonika. It received a new commander, Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller (later to be known as the "Butcher of Crete") and a new designation as a "motorized-tropical air-landing division."

The 47th and its attached artillery did join Rommel, but in October the division lost its "Air Landing" status and the rest of its troops went to Crete to replace the 164th on garrison duty. There they built fortifications and murdered civilians until August 1944, taking part in operations against British and Italian troops on Leros and other islands in 1943. Müller would be shot by a Greek firing squad in 1947 for his war crimes.

Sevastopol took a lot out of the division, which was not fit to take up its intended "motorized-tropical" role alongside the Afrika Korps. But its presence in Greece allowed it to be shipped across the short sea lane to Tobruk, avoiding the long trek to southern Italy, across to Tripoli and then along the badly maintained Libyan road net to the front — a journey of weeks if not months. Personnel could be flown across from Athens and Crete. And not least in the eyes of turf-guarding German bureaucrats, this route was out of the hands of their Italian allies.

A fully motorized 22nd Air-Landing, fully re-equipped and furnished with replacements for its combat losses to join its veteran core, would have been a formidable addition to Rommel's order of battle — but still probably not what he really meant in his legendary whine. A third panzer division would greatly increase Axis striking power; whether it would have been enough to put Rommel in Alexandria is a question best settled on the game map.

The 10th Panzer Division had been pulled out of the front line in April 1942, and after a short rest behind the front line its personnel boarded trains for France. They left their battered equipment and weapons behind to reinforce other Fourth Panzer Army formations remaining at the front. In France, the 7th Panzer Regiment's two battalions were fully re-equipped with factory-fresh PzIIIJ and PzIVF2 tanks, all armed with the long-barreled 50mm and 75mm guns. In June the regiment added a third battalion, transferred from 14th Panzer Division.

What could Rommel have accomplished with a third panzer division on hand? Probably nothing much. The tanks would still need fuel, the weapons would need ammunition, and the men would need food. All of that would have to come across the Mediterranean in the face of hostile Allied forces, and despite the bravery of the Royal Italian Navy, Rommel barely had enough for the troops already on hand. If anything, the transport of more men and weapons would reduce the lift capacity available for supplies.

But we're not limited by harsh reality in the world of wargames; we can test out these questions and see if the risk would have been worth it.

Variant One: Downsized Divisions

German motorized divisions had six battalions rather than the nine of a foot-powered unit, and the 90th Light Division was no exception though it fielded three regiments of two battalions each rather than two regiments each with three battalions as was common outside the North African theater. In all scenarios, remove the 3rd Battalion of the 155th, 200th and 361st Regiments from play. In addition, in Scenario One replace the 3/361 Battalion with 2/361, and reduce the number of steps removed from the 90th Light Division to 20. In Scenario Two, replace the 3/361 Battalion with 2/361, and reduce the number of steps removed from the 90th Light Division to 18. In Scenario Three, reduce the number of steps removed from the 90th Light Division to six.

In game terms, the 164th Light Division is over-rated with a 5 morale and 7-8-6 full-strength ratings for its infantry battalions. The division arrived in North Africa with three regiments of three battalions each, none of them up to strength — many of its personnel had been judged unfit for combat (or had convinced their officers of this) and been left with Fortress Brigade Crete. And while its "motorized" designation never went past a mere formality, the intent appears to have been to eventually fully motorize the division, which would entail reducing the infantry from nine to six battalions. And so in September 1942 each of its three regiments disbanded its 3rd Battalion.

First, replace its infantry with the lower-strength/lower-morale pieces provided with this variant. Leave the division's order of battle intact for Scenario One, but double the number of step removals (to 10 total). In all other scenarios, remove the 3rd Battalion of the 125th, 382nd and 433rd Regiments from play, but don't alter the number of step removals. Don't put them in the Eliminated Units box. Next, remove the 3/220 artillery from all scenarios. The 164th only brought two artillery battalions to North Africa, one of them equipped only with 75mm mountain guns. Don't put it in the Eliminated Units box, either.

Unlike the variants that follow in Part Two, this one really shouldn't be optional. If you want to play with these two divisions at their actual capability, you should make the changes outlined above.

Note: FREE downloadable counters make up Part Three of this variant. Keep watching Daily Content for the rest!

Put this variant into play! Click here to order Alamein while it's still in print!