A couple of weeks back Phil and I got together to push some 6mm tanks around the table using Charlie Don’t Surf. He expressed a desire to play with some Israeli "Super Shermans" so I painted up some Jordanians and devised a basic scenario loosely based around the Battle of Dothan Valley on the West Bank at the start of the June/Six Day War of 1967...

Historically the Israelis launched a pre-emptive strike on Egypt and then, following some artillery exchanges, Jordan. The IDF's 45th Armoured Brigade formed the vanguard of the Israeli attack pushing into northern Samaria. tasked with eliminating the Jordanian 155mm ‘Long Tom’ howitzers threatening Ramat David airbase across the border in Israel.

On the night of the 5/6th June the 45th took the town of Jenin after fierce fighting against the Jordanian 47th Tank Battalion, however the next day saw the Jordanians commit their armour reserves of the 40th Armoured Brigade to the battle, with its 2nd Battalion threatening to envelope the reconnaissance company of the IDF 45th Armoured Brigade.

The scenario was inspired by the Jordanian 40th's counter-attack and the IDF trying to stop them cutting off the recce unit.

Well that was a (very) bloody battle - and reflecting the historical result (at a couple of points the Jordanians ran low on ammo and fuel as happened in 1967). As the Jordanian commander I was probably a little too rash in closing with the Israelis and maybe a more conservative approach engaging the poorly armoured IDF tanks at long range would have served me better.

At some stage I need to get some infantry and support weapons on the table for my Arab-Israeli Charlie Don't Surf games, but as a set of rules for pure tank battles (not uncommon in 1967 and '73) it provides a fun and engaging game with lots of tanks going boom!

Steve Blease