Horn of Africa, Sword of the Sea:
In Sinbad’s Wake
by Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
December 2023

They’ve been vital waterways over the past 75 years, thanks to oil traffic, but during the Second World War the Red Sea and Persian Gulf did not hold quite the same importance. The Red Sea served as 2,200-kilometer extension of the Suez Canal, linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Indian Ocean. That gave it strategic significance, but during the first years of the war the Mediterranean wasn’t fully open to Allied traffic. The British still counted on the Red Sea to funnel reinforcements from India, Australia and New Zealand into the Middle East, as well as oil from the Persian Gulf.

Italy had secured a colony on the African side of the Red Sea, Eritrea, in the 1880’s and fifty years later built up a naval base at Massawa. When war came in 1940, the base hosted a flotilla of destroyers and another of submarines, as well as some of the typical over-aged craft assigned by colonial powers to patrol their backwaters.

The Red Sea naval campaign ended fairly quickly, with the British overrunning Massawa from its landward flank. The Royal Navy, as was their pattern during the war, assigned only sufficient forces to give a small margin of superiority, allowing the Italians the opportunity to attack several Allied convoys. The Italian submarines had only limited success, as the coolant in their new-fangled air conditions systems poisoned their crews.

The campaign would down fairly quickly, as the Italian government had gone to war by its own choice in June 1940, but failed to alert the Navy to their plans. The base at Massawa had not been stocked with fuel, torpedoes and ammunition, and soon the destroyers were restricted to local patrols to conserve these supplies which could not be replenished.

As far as I know, Second World War at Sea: Horn of Africa is the only wargame ever published on this campaign, and only the second to feature it in any way (I designed the other one). We fleshed it out with some hypothetical scenarios, giving the Italian squadron some additional firepower to challenge the stronger British force that appeared late in the campaign. It’s a very different sort of Second World War at Sea game, given the odd shape of the Red Sea.

The map, by Guy Riessen, is full-sized, our standard 28x22-inch model. The Suez Canal is up there in the upper left, and the Red Sea slashes down and to the right, emptying into the Gulf of Aden. But that’s only part of the map; we also have a significant slice of the Arabian Sea on the right and upper right portions of the map, plus the Persian Gulf is top center.

Those areas don’t see any action in Horn of Africa, where the operations take place in the Red Sea and the adjacent Gulf of Aden. But I included them for a very specific purpose: I knew that I would want to bring our Second Great War at Sea alternative history to this region, and for that campaign, we would need the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea.

Second Great War at Sea: Sword of the Sea is centered on the Ottoman Empire, which has survived the First World War and now prospers as part of the Central Powers, an economic as well as military alliance. The Ottomans have fleets in both the Red Sea (based at Hodeida in Yemen) and the Persian Gulf (based at Umm Qatr near Basra, with a secondary base at Qatar). For the most part, the Ottoman fleet operates older ships purchased from their German allies and modernized for this new war, and relatively inexpensive coast-defense ships.

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They face an array of enemies, starting with the Italians across the Red Sea in Eritrea. The Italian squadron is augmented with potent late-model destroyers, and a division of coast-defense ships. But that’s not the only doe; outside the Strait of Bab el-Mandeb at the southern exit of the Red Sea the British have a major naval base at Aden and a strong naval force of their own, augmented by the Royal Indian Navy’s re-built old dreadnoughts and helicopter cruisers. The Ottomans do get some major reinforcements once they secure the Suez Canal, but this is a secondary theater and they also lose them to more important operations closer to home.

In the Persian Gulf, the Ottomans face the revived Iranian Empire, which has built up its fleet with the help of Italian and Russian shipyards. The Iranians field impressive modern warships (based on actual Soviet and Italian designs), but their rapid buildup has left them with less-than-stellar crew performance. They’re out to project their power across the Gulf onto the oil-rich areas controlled by the Ottomans, and also into the Arabian Sea.

Finally, a small German squadron operating out of German East Africa gives some assistance to their Ottoman allies.

It’s an odd story, but it’s one crafted to dovetail with the map, to make sure that we get to use all of it – the entire Red Sea from Suez to Assab, the full Gulf of Aden, the Arabian Sea (with a British port at Gwadar up there in the upper right corner) and the Persian Gulf. The Arabian Peninsula neatly splits the battlefield into two distinct segments; the Allies can switch forces back and forth (not easily, as the Peninsula is really big) but the Central Powers can usually only do so with aircraft.

Sword of the Sea, the game, is shaped by its map (that is, the map from Horn of Africa). That’s one of the great things about alternative-history world-building; you get to craft the history to suit your purposes. The Horn of Africa map is just interesting to look at, beyond its aesthetic beauty. These are the seas crossed by Sinbad the Sailor, and given their importance in 21st-Century geopolitics, it’s a little surprising to see just how close the quarters are. Angry movements can lob missiles at passing ships, if their patrons provide them, but they also have the option of running down to the shore and throwing rocks. It’s that narrow.

And we get some compelling stories, both historical (Horn of Africa) and from an alternate world (Sword of the Sea). All built around that wonderful map.

Sinbad’s Wake
            Horn of Africa (Playbook)
            Fleets: Imperial Germany
            Fleets: Imperial Russia
            Fleets: La Royale
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Mike Bennighof is president of Avalanche Press and holds a doctorate in history from Emory University. A Fulbright Scholar and NASA Journalist in Space finalist, he has published a great many books, games and articles on historical subjects; people are saying that some of them are actually good. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama with his wife, three children, and new puppy. He misses his lizard-hunting Iron Dog, Leopold.

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