The 5th South African Brigade was overrun and ceased to exist as a fighting force. This was accomplished in less than 1.5 hours of combat (which took the players some 5 hours to play!).

The scenario was set - Sidi Rezegh area, 14h00 on 23 November 1941. Almost surrounded by German forces to the north, west and south, the 5th South African Brigade had no choice but to go defensive in a lager spreading over some 4 square miles (2x2 miles). Only very little cover was available and the men could not dig in for more than 2-3 feet due to the hard ground. But they did what they could.

All the players (with the exception of one!) that applied turned out and by 10am on Saturday morning the house was a hub of activity, with officers receiving their briefings and waiting for their allocated forces. Only by 11:15 had the preparations been done and the battled opened with a free move for the British forces in order to respond to the massed formations of the Germans that had by now been spotted by the British reconnaissance units. 

The first unexpected (and non-historical event) was the fact that the supply trucks of 5th Brigade's B-echelon did not disperse towards the east (north being to the left in the above picture), but raced off towards the west, crossing the 22nd Brigade's front. The 4th SA Armoured Cars responded by fleeing through the lager positions of 5th Brigade and ran into the main advance of the 5th Panzer Regiment and the motorcycles of the 200th Rifle Regiment. The motorcycles succeeded in driving off the batteries of the 4th Field Regiment RA, deployed to the east of the lager, but not without taking casualties and also having to fall back, just to be caught on a slight rise by the 4th SA Armoured Cars and virtually wiped out.

As the panzers of the 8th Panzer Regiment, supported by 115th Rifle Regiment smashed their way through the Southwest corner of the lager, they took a large number of casualties, especially while engaging the huge number of AT weapons covering the southern front of the lager and the Crusaders of the composite Regiment of the 22nd Brigade to the west. The losses in commanding officers was not in the least as bad as in the real battle, due to the Germans taking the appropriate measures to protect their command vehicles.

Towards the northeast, three battalions of the German 104th Rifle Regiment (Group Knabe) demonstrated aggressively southward towards the gun positions of the 4th Field Regiment and Regiment Botha facing the east. Their task was made much easier when half the batteries were driven off the high ground and had to fall back to the northwest after the motorcycle engagement, and they could engage and destroy the remaining battery in their own time.

The 361 Afrika Regiment (French Foreign Legionnaires fighting for the Germans)  also demonstrated from their positions in the north southward towards the 26th New Zealand Battalion, who put up a hearty resistance and even charged in true NZ fashion in the face of overwhelming odds! Needless to say, they got cut up badly by the 361 Regiment's AT guns, machine guns and mortars and only a handful managed to escape to the south, where the remains of the 2 British armoured brigades, the Cruisers of the 7th and the Stuarts of the 4th were arriving together on the battlefield from the southeast.

The few panzers of the 5th Panzer Regiment were caught by surprise and cut up badly when the Stuarts and Cruisers took up hull-down positions on an escarpment directly on the Panzer's right flank. The Panzer Regiment was caught in a crossfire between the armoured brigades on their right and the South African armoured cars on their left flank and was forced back to the edge of the battlefield. Even the German 88mm Battery, having succeeded in only destroying a few cruisers, were caught and the crews mowed down.

But the arrival of the two Brotosh armoured brigades on the battlefield, even within the first hour of fighting, was too late. The panzers of the 8th Panzer Regiment, with the 115th Rifle Regiment close in their rear, succeeded in breaking into the SA lager, destroying all the remaining AT and field guns in the lager and threatening the rear of the Transvaal Scottish and President Botha battalions after destroying most of the Scots Guards and the South African Irish. With panzers and an entire infantry regiment to their rear, and within the perimeters of the lager, the Transvaal Scottish and President Botha battalions was forced to surrender without firing a shot. To the west, the fleeing surviving trucks of the B Echelon succeeded in reaching the edge of the battlefield only to discover the presence of the Italian Ariete Division, which quickly captured the remaining supply trucks, despite the presence of the Composite Regiment, still bravely putting up a fight against the approaching panzers.

The combat time was only 14h30 (real time, it was after 4pm!), but all the participants agreed that it turned out a decisive victory for the Germans, which was to be expected, given the huge number of forces available to them. The 21st Panzer Division to the north, with the 155th Rifle Regiment (2 Battalions) and 155th Artillery Regiment remaining after the 5th Panzer Regiment was detached to support 15th Panzer Division, was never activated (due to bad dice throws and unavailability of figures), although the artillery caused somewhat heavy casualties to the Transvaal Scottish.

In total, 11 battalions of Infantry, 4 battalions of tanks, 2 entire regiments of Artillery, a Reconnaissance Battalion, a complete AT battalion, as well as an 88mm AA Battery was available to the Germans to crush the strengthened 4 battalions of the 5th SA Brigade which was supported by 3 battalions of tanks, 3 regiments of Artillery, 6 batteries of AT guns, and the Armoured Car battalion.

Top left to right: Evan Gotte, Paul Gouws, Johan Schoeman, Eddie van Trotsenberg, Jean du Toit, Nick Barrie-Smith, Rory Manning, Dean Hinzelman, Adrian van Heerden, Anthony Fanner. Middle, left to right: Anthony van Dijk, Greg Pullin, Jason Hinzelman, Damian Enslin, Robert Baldi. Front, left to right: Chris Pullin, Craig Nevin, Harry Adlard. Absent but played: Michael Karsten.

Thanks to all the players that participated in this very successful re-fight, despite the fact that for most it was the first time ever that they played Command Decision and for at least one person, the first time ever to play a wargame!