Lardies in Town
Some inspired local gamers had booked a hall and arranged a day of TooFatLardies gaming to be attended by Richard Clarke, one of the TooFatLardies rules writers. The fact that a day of Lard was going to happen not much more than a stone’s throw from my own centre of operations was just the incentive needed to dig out the old project, jump-start a new campaign, and aim to get something on the table in no time at all. It also provided the opportunity to ask the rules writer himself any ITLSU-related questions.
Operations at Dilbar, 1915
In the dim and distant past, starting a
wargames project was normally based around
getting just one army on the tabletop. More
recently, my idea of a wargames project was to
put together a complete tabletop: specifically,
all the miniatures and the terrain for one
particular battle. I decided to kick-start my
current WW1 desert campaign by
concentrating my efforts around recreating the
operations at Dilbar, 13-15 August, 1915. I was
attracted to this combat by a sketch map
(right) in Operations in Persia (see Post 2). A
small affair, it was nonetheless typical of
Imperial expeditions to
destroy the resources
of troublesome
tribesmen spurred on
by German agents and,
importantly, included
a number of features
that had attracted me
to WW1 desert
warfare.
The Indian regiments
of the British Imperial
army began the Great
War as a frontier force
well able to combat
rifle-armed opponents.
The First World War
propelled this force
into modern warfare.
Dilbar (sometimes
called Dilwar) is an
early war example of
operations that saw
Indian forces combine
with the Royal Navy to
combat local tribesmen
in desert terrain, and
encapsulates a number
of features particular
to desert warfare.
INTRODUCTION
In 1915 whatever the political situation in Persia, the British were determined to hold on to Bushire on the Persian Gulf. German agents (under the inattentive eye of the neutral Persian Government) were active at Shiraz from where they encouraged the local anti- British Tangistanis to attack the British at Bushire. Only one of two planned attacks materialised; carried out by mainly men from Dilbar led by their Khan, Rais Ali, who was well known to the British and blamed for local piracy. This attack was repulsed by the Indian battalion 96th Infantry. As a retaliatory measure, half of the 96th (led by Major Wintle) were sent to Dilbar on a punitive expedition to destroy the base and resources of the hostile Tangistanis. The expedition left Bushire on 10th August and travelled south in four ships: Juno, Pyramus, Lawrence and Dalhousie.
POST 008
008
