CMAK Companion: Foreword and Introduction

From the very beginning, one of the main goals while developing the Combat Mission wargame series has been to create the most realistic combat simulation available on the commercial market. We knew that we had reached that goal when we saw people quoting historical accounts on our discussion boards when discussing tactics and strategies for the game.

“Combat Mission: Afrika Korps” introduces the Mediterranean Theater to the Combat Mission series. From Egypt and Tunisia to Crete, Sicily and Italy, it covers a vast territory and most of the duration of the Second World War. During these campaigns, strategies and tactics evolve, new equipment is deployed, even the nations at war come and go. There simply is no better “strategy guide” for such a deep game system than a collection of real historical accounts, memories, episodes and snapshots as Tom has put together in this book. Not only will you find a colorful and exciting background to the places and periods that the game covers, you will also learn about how the actual commanders fought their battles, facing the same tactical challenges that the player does when firing up a Combat Mission QuickBattle.

If there is one book and one book only you’d want to buy about tactical combat in the Mediterranean Theater, then this is it. It covers small unit actions in all of the Mediterranean campaigns, depicting everything from the early battles in the desert to the final showdown in Northern Italy. Describing actions involving infantry, armor, airborne, artillery, and other arms of the British, U.S., German, Canadian, New Zealand, Italian, Indian, Australian, and South African armies, the book has pulled together the best accounts of tactical combat from two dozen sources and is the essential background companion to the game—and to the Second World War in the Med in general.

Tom has done a great job of capturing all of the drama and atmosphere of the campaigns in the Mediterranean, from the exhilaration (or exhaustion!) after a successful mission to the tragedy of lost comrades-in-arms to the humorous incidents which inevitably occur in combat. Watch out, it’s next to impossible to put down the book once you’ve read the first page!

Steve, Charles, Dan, Matt, Fernando & Martin
The Battlefront.com Team

Probably like most of the readers of this volume, I have enjoyed the Combat Mission series immensely. I have also always enjoyed reading military history, and found that battles in Combat Mission bring history to life like no other wargame. But as I played more, I began to ask myself what the World War II battlefield was really like at the platoon, company, or battalion level. Unfortunately, I found it very difficult to find books which focused on World War II combat at this level: while there are many excellent accounts of particular campaigns or units during the war, these books generally focus on the operational or strategic levels, with perhaps a few anecdotes regarding the types of small unit actions featured in the Combat Mission series. I was looking for accounts of actions at the tactical level, with detailed information about the characteristics and effects of specific weapons, the tactics employed, or the performance of the various combatants.

When I couldn’t find a single source for this kind of material, I decided to prepare one myself. This volume is arranged in eight sections corresponding to the Mediterranean campaigns (Italian Africa, Rommel’s Africa, Crete, Rommel’s Africa, Continued, Northwestern Africa, Sicily, Southern Italy, and Nothern Italy). The excerpts are arranged chronologically, with the month and year noted at the bottom of each page.

My goal was to compile a single volume of excerpts describing small unit actions of all arms, by all nationalities, in all of the Mediterranean campaigns covered by Combat Mission: Afrika Korps. Although I found it more difficult than expected to find, and obtain the rights to, a wide selection of excerpts about small unit actions, I hope that the materials in this collection will interest, educate, and entertain the reader.

Tom Reiter