The Abyssinian Crisis project blog (update 21JUN17) - **It. Askari platoon **

[Happy Wanderer]

Thanks guys,

..and with that...

..here are the British dispositions for The Abyssinian Crisis. Quite difficult to patch this info together to give a good look at what forces the British had available for use in TAC...not quite as much as first thought.

...to the British

http://wp.me/p6mUyQ-dT

[FramFramson]

Awesome and detailed! Wonder what depths you plumbed to get that info...

[Arlequín]

Thanks, the right school tie still opens a lot of doors... 

No seriously, it's all mostly out there on the web, but as you say, you have to be prepared to dig deep and collate from a variety of sources. There were a couple of leaps of faith regarding one or two units, but as we weren't doing the 'real crisis' this was not a major obstacle. Thankfully as the 'Palestinian Crisis' began later in 1936 and the units that were deployed for that are mostly the same ones that would have reinforced ME Command if that all 'went off'. 

It was incredibly fascinating stuff though. 

[James Morris]

Fab - really interesting reading!  What I'm really waiting for are the CoC forces - then I will get a game in.

[Vintage Wargaming]

I have an interest in 1st Durham Light Infantry in their role as an experimental motorised MG Battalion from 1934-36. They were equipped with a range of interesting kit including Vickers Utility Tractor MG carriers. There is some British Pathe newsreel of them on exercises. Some still photos appeared in an Airfix Magazine series on the Interwar British Army. You'll find all this on Vintage Wargaming.

The relevance of this is that the experiment ended when they were stripped of their equipment which was given to troops earmarked for the Palestine crisis. I don't know what unit(s) this was and I haven't seen any photographic evidence, but this does raise the possibility of some pretty interesting vehicles being plausibly available to the British.

[Happy Wanderer]

@Vintage

The Brits do have some interesting and cool kit in the interwar years. One of the drivers behind TAC was the ability to press into service some interesting equipment that is most decidedly not WW2 nor WW1...and never really 'had its chance'.

I must say that Arlequin did the heavy digging on this post and personally I think it's the most detailed assessment of the British forces of this period available...a really useful resource (kudos to your moderator!!). It also shows the shear variety of forces that are available to a  British player in TAC...some cracking good forces to choose from. For me I'm using the Empress NWF Highlanders to represent the Cameroons.

The Abyssinian Armoured Field Force really let's you play with some funky kit which is certainly part of the fun...and yes, you can use this little fella if you want in your British army (follow the link)...

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=176894


@James
Patience Padawan  

Next up will be the French, who I must say could be the most interesting force mix available of all the armies...possibly excluding the truly variable forces the Italians can field....James, you will need to brush of the dust on those Ethiopians and Italains...and we all shall look forward to seeing them back in action..get Scrivs onto it!

I've spoke to TFL Rich and we shall be putting an article in the upcoming Xmas edition and to kick off the festive season in December there will be the release of a month full of lists...yep...a new list every 48hrs for a month!!!!...all for the cost of a dribble of bandwidth  

...stay tuned...La Francais next...

Happy W

[Vintage Wargaming]

Most of the pics on that thread are of the Utility B, the export version built for Belgium. The "bren" on the second photo is a Vickers Berthier.

This is the original 1928 Tractor



The 1932 Utility Standard



And this is the 1932 Personnel Carrier,



used by the DLI as their MG carrier, as seen in this Pathe Newsreel from 1936

[scrivs]

..get Scrivs onto it!

Oi, Scrivs is on 'no new projects until the move is completed', stop trying to catch my eye with your lovely shiny baubles 

[Happy Wanderer]

"Oi, Scrivs is on 'no new projects until the move is completed', stop trying to catch my eye with your lovely shiny baubles"

 

...you are the master of the interwar game though...

Happy W

[grant]

Still digging this.

Tractor - plough field, drag MG to war. One tractor does it all!

[Arlequín]

I was a bit pushed for time yesterday and missed an important 'Thank You'... which goes to 'Vintage Wargaming' for his two excellent blogs; Vintage Wargaming and Interwar Tank Development.... it's no exaggeration that these were both invaluable sources, so credit where it's due!

 

[Happy Wanderer]

Gents,

The French! Before going into the more detailed description of the French army in a subsequent post we describe a little bit of background to set up the French army discussion.

As you can tell, La Francais had a lot of colonial resources to draw upon, her own laws restricting the use of Metropolitan troops in overseas 'adventures'.

So we commence the description of the last army in The Abyssinian Crisis...the French.

https://abyssiniancrisis.wordpress.com/2015/11/26/france-la-question-de-labyssinie/


Happy W

[Vintage Wargaming]

I'm very happy to have been able to put the Vickers Armstrong pictures onto the net thanks to the Beamish Museum. I do still hope to do some work on captions but this is a big job and might take a while to get round to.

[Happy Wanderer]

Adding further to the French army description we take a closer look at the units that formed the French expeditionary force to Abyssinia. There's plenty to choose from and it is impressive to see the shear variety of force types the armée d'outre-mer (overseas army) could muster.

In total she had 210,000 effective in North Africa, Syria and the colonies, whilst 320,000 men were under arms at home, with 100,000 formed into specialist regiments of infantry and cavalry - certainly a force to be reckoned with.


https://abyssiniancrisis.wordpress.com/2015/11/28/french-army/

Cheers

Happy W

[Happy Wanderer]

In this last post on the armies of The Abyssinian Crisis we look at the Dispositions of the French army in 1935/36. Without labouring the point it can be seen just how vast the French army was spread across the globe...truly impressive. They bring more troop variety to TAC than any other army.

The unit locations should prove useful for organising 'your expeditionary force' as well as being a very useful resource for potential scenarios developing in Syria or North Africa.

I hope this series of posts has given potential players the background info to get a feel for each of the armies and maybe even got some ideas or gaming plans going...

...any comments welcome...we'll move onto the Army list for Chain of Command in the coming days so players can sink their teeth into the nuts and bolts of these armies.

http://wp.me/p6mUyQ-f7


Happy W