Visiting El Alto del León Fortifications of the SCW (2)

(Continued from previous post)

We finished the visit to the La Sevillana position looking into some of the buildings that were used as accommodation to the Nationalists troops. The first two photos are from a building erected just behind the observation post bunker. The construction seems to have been of very good quality with a wide access door and a row of windows.

Given its size we calculated that it could shelter a probably a full section (around 20 men) or even more. 

Another smaller shelter stands nearby, an officer's or NCOs lodging place?

Visiting El Alto del León Fortifications of the SCW (1)

Saturday July 19^th marked the official launch of our new project to play a campaign in the Spanish Civil War with Chain of Command. And no better way to start the project than visiting one of the battlefields next to Madrid (El Alto del León) during the morning, followed by a nice lunch and a game in the afternoon with the first painted minis… and almost coinciding with the 78^th anniversary of the start of war (18^th July, 1936)!

Background

Around 60 km north of Madrid, El Alto del León (1,500 mts height) is a key mountain pass of the road linking Spain’s capital with some of the main cities of the former Old Castilla region in the north (Avila, Segovia, Salamanca or Valladolid) and leading into the north-western region of Galicia.

 

El Alto del León now and then

Today it is a secondary road, as between the early 60s and 70s two toll tunnels and a motorway were dig underneath, facilitating the road communications between the two halves of Spain. However in 1936, el Alto del León was one of the three key mountain passes to reach Madrid from the North (the other two being Navacerrada and Somosierra, the latter also a site of a famous battle in the Napoleonic wars).

The Fall of Tobruk - A Chain of Command AAR

Last weekend the first Afrika CoC campaign concluded with the last game, in this case with the attack on the central objective of the campaign: the inner perimeter of Tobruk. As I commented in a previous post, for different reasons I've been less active than wished in the campaign and have only played a couple of games including this final chapter.

With eight players interested, we structured the campaign around two different fronts with 2 opponents per side each, using the "ladder" system described in At The Sharp End, the CoC campaigns companion publication. We allocated 2 infantry platoons and a tank troop to each front, with no further reinforcements.