Cauldron: Battle of Gazala, May 1942

During the North African campaign in 1941, British forces had succeeded in pushing Axis forces back away from Tobruk. British intelligence mistakenly believed that German General Erwin Rommel would be unable to mount another offensive until later in the year, but Rommel's forces unexpectedly drove forward in January 1942 and attacked Tobruk. The Axis attack was blunted, and Rommel withdrew to a defensive position near the village of Gazala, in a "cauldron" surrounded on three sides by British forces, and with his back to a minefield. The British then attempted to attack Rommel's forces in the "cauldron".^[1]

Cauldron is a game for two players where one player controls the Axis forces, and the other controls the British forces. Mechanized units on both sides provide opportunities for maneuvering.^[2] With only 100 counters and relatively few rules, this game has been characterized as "simple, easy to play and requires a short period of time (1-2 hours) to complete."^[3]

The game uses a standard "I Go, You Go" alternating turn system taken from SPI's previous publication The Battle of Borodino, where one player moves and fires, then the other player does the same. This completes one game turn.

Units are not allowed to stack. A unit must stop if it enters an enemy's zone of control, and then must attack the enemy.^[4] In most combat results, the loser is only eliminated if it can't retreat, adding impetus to the attacker to maneuver to surround the unit.^[4]

The game offers two scenarios, which can be linked together to form a campaign game.^[5]