Showing posts with label Beach. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Beach. Show all posts

30 March 2015

Reference for ANZAC Diorama, Gallipoli: More historic photos of ANZAC, British and Ottoman troops

Anzac Diorama: More reference photos for Chanuk Bair project 



The realities of war. A commonwealth soldier observes the body of a compatriot.
 The caption reads that he is handling stores, which could well be so, judging from the packed provisions (? ) water barrel and ammunition/food. The roll of cable suggests a different task to me though, and that barrel appears very empty. For some reason the guy also looks like a sapper to me. 

This particular photograph was censored at the time, as it showed a dead commonwealth soldier. The Kings College collection have some really graphic photographs of casualties that were censored and embargoed at the time. Some of the pictures still turn the stomach, even in today's permissive and desensitised world and the era of the internet.


Water supplies being filtered to remove impurities. Water at Gallipoli had to be imported from friendly territory around the Med or captured local supply. 


The harshness of the terrain illustrated. Very steep incline, with hardly any beach at high tide. Notice the line of horses tethered to the start of the undergrowth


Water being filtered before it was fit for consumption. Water quality was poor, shipped from surrounding islands or obtained from captured local sources.


View from one of the ridges. The light coloured specs are bodies. Hundreds of bodies, commonwealth and Turkish, both 


Evacuating  the wounded. I suspect this series of photographs may have been staged. Never the less, it gives us a good look at the uniforms. You can even see the hobnails under the boots that the Perry Brothers have faithfully reproduced in their miniatures that I am painting at the moment.


Field dressings being applied


NZ soldiers fraternising with the locals. There are several photographs of these two soldiers with the Turkish family. Clearly for propaganda purposes.



Exhausted New Zealanders asleep in their trench (IWM)


One tends to think that the troops were dumped at Gallipoli and left untill evacuated. This was not the case. This photograph is captioned " New Zealand soldiers returning to Gallipoli after leave on Lemnos" What it does show clearly is the wide array of headgear worn.

British Officers meeting with Russian Naval allies 


Some traditions endure. British Naval Officers taking tea.



British landing at V Beach, from the sea, and the ridge above



Brits dug in

Landings at ANZAC Cove:

ANZAC Divisional Officers landing


Terrain of the cove - Equipment, supplies and men piled high





Overview of the terrain


 

Once a foothold had been established...



Grenade practice. The webbing can be seen nicely in this picture, as can the variety of trousers, shirts and tunics. There is clear colour variation, even in the B&W photo.



ANZACs in the Trenches. Good detail of footwear and leggings.



Two Australians of the ANZAC in their dugout, named Spliter Villa for good reason. It is estimated that more soldiers died from flying wood splinters than from shrapnel. This was poarticularly true in the wooded areas of Europe (see my previous post on the Dellville Wood debacle, South Africa's WW1 equivalent of Gallipoli's senseless slaughter)


Field surgeon at work on Gallipoli beach.


One tend to think of Gallipoli as hot and dusty. When winter came it was wet, cold, and miserable


Frostbitten men awaiting evacuation


Frostbite victims in makeshift shelter


ANZAC Maori warrior braving the cold in the trenches

Turkish Uniforms
 

Staff Officers (I suspect a tad retouched)


ANZAC Soldiers with a captured Turkish Sniper


Turkish captives



Tending to Turkish wounded



Interrogation of captives



Note the huge variation of dress, mostly civilian. It looks as if pants and tunics were issued, but the enlisted men were free to wear anything underneath. Looks like both sides suffered from shortage of supply



Again the variety in Turkish Uniforms



A Captured Turk who was a barber in civilian life pressed into duty by the ANZACs


 

The omnipresent draught and pack animals. 
A donkey being given coco (!) Anyway that's what the caption says.


A Gallipoli pet. Light distraction was scarce in Gallipoli. One would have to presume that the donkey was pretty tame to allow this!


Indian Mule handlers

 

A cricket game played on the day of the withdrawal from ANZAC cove. A ruse to fool the Turks that all was business as usual in ANZAC Cove. I bet there was no sledging from the Aussie side that day!



Infantry Dress



Mounted Infantry - Huge variation in headgear, all within the same unit.


Rear view of mounted Infantry

20 May 2014

Battle Report: Sword Beach D-Day: Luc-Sur-Mer

Battle Report: D-Day Sword Landings Part 1: Luc-Sur-Mer

Dawn broke on the 6th of June 1944. The German lines at Luc-Sur Mer had taken a beating from Allied bombers overnight. One of the multi-story buildings on the waterfront had been all but destroyed, but the Ost Truppen huddled in the trenches and the bunkers remained unscathed.


" Herr Leutnant! Englischer Schiffe!" The junior officer visibly paled when he brought his binoculars to his eyes. As far as he could see the horizon was packed with ships. The next moment naval shells screamed overhead.

 " Es fingt an..." -  It has started, he said. Here's to hoping these Ost Truppen will hold!


Luc-sur-Mer at Dawn 6 June 1944: German occupation troops dug in, 
88mm Bunker and 75mm Tank Turret to theright, at left, Pillbox HMG and LMG, 
rocket launcher battery and Pak 40s in fields beyond

The gamers rolled first for wild cards- the Luc-sur-Mer (LSM) sector of the board rolled improved skills for the Infantry: Went from reluctant trained to confident veteran, a useful roll. Allies rolled for extra armour support (+1 to rolls for armoured reinforcement landing)

Turn 1: The allies went first (as per the real battle): First a preliminary naval bombardment, which took out one of the Flak Vierling AA guns protecting the rocket launcher battery set in the fields beyond LSM.

The landing craft arrived, disgorging sappers on the beach, and calling in a flight of Hawker Typhoons. 3 aircraft made it to the area, and attacked the dug in troops in the trenches facing the beaches. The dug in Ost Truppen (now confident veterans) lost some platoons, but held, ready for the coming onslaught


The first British wave to land: Sappers of the 22nd Dragoons (3rd Inf Div)
Their task to destroy the beach defenses to allow the tanks to move into LSM

Germans returned fire, taking out the lead sapper command group with their machine-gun fire and fire from the trenches. The sappers were unlucky enough to be just within the range of the nebelwerfers, which then proceeded to unleash a hail of death upon them. The survivors of the first wave were pinned down on the beach, and failed to reach the minefields and tank barriers they were attempting to destroy, to allow the masses of tanks in LCTs approaching in the second wave of landings.


The Nebelwerfers dug in near the town's water supply unleash their deadly barrage on the beaches:
Ost Truppen and 88mm AA gun protecting their flank and frontal arc respectively



Turn 2: More sappers land and a flight of Typhoons deliver more death to the German trenches.
Well fortified and dug in, they survive the ordeal, but radio for AA support.
 Where is " Der verdamte Luftwaffe? "

Turn two saw some allied tanks make it to the beach- a unit of DD Sherman tanks. These waded out of the water before opening fire on the German emplacements. A heavy MG nest was taken out by this assault. The second wave of landing craft also deployed more sappers, who hurried up the beach, only to meet the same fate as those landed in the first wave.

These however had learned from their compatriots' misfortune, and stayed out of range of the rocket launchers. A single surviving troop of the first landing made it to the beach defenses, and started preparing the way for the next landing of tanks. The dug in static German Infantry, in trenches and buffed up to confident veterans withstood wave on wave of attack, with minimal casualties.

The Germans brought up a 37 mm AA gun mounted on a half-track to defend the infantry from the incessant harrasment by the RAF, only to find the fiendish pilots changing their flight path to avoid the German shells.

The 21st Panzer Army's Stug IIIs arrived from Caen, and moved towards LSM, to the cheers of the Heer artillery, who found that the clever Tommies stayed well out of reach of both the Nebelwerfers and LeFH18 fieldguns. The ruins of LSM also prevented the 88mm guns from drawing a bead on the tanks on the beach.

To relieved grins the 21. Pz Div started moving down the road towards the beaches. This time Allied Aircraft were intercepted on their way in, and did not arrive at the scene of the battle. More smiles from Herr Oberleutnant Rhyn von Rheenen zu Fischer, commanding the Panzer column:


Turn 3 saw the Allies land several more M4 Shermans from LCTs and also  2 Churchill AVRE bunker busters, as well as a Churchill VII onto LSM Beach.

 They made short shrift of the 88 mm Gun emplacement and the 75 tank turret bunker guarding the beach approaches. Both went up in flames. They also carefully stayed out of reach of the rocket launcher range. The Germans in their turn successfully brought up a platoon of reinforcement PzKfw IVs from the direction of Caen, and went hammer and tongs at double time to try and get to the beach head, but it was a very looooong way from the back of the board !




The deadly bunker-busting AVREs

Turn 4 saw the Allies still on the beach, though the beach defenses at LSM had now broken, all that stood between the allies were the trenches of the Ost Truppen of 716. Infanterie Division. Luckily these held, not withstanding another rocket attack by 2 typhoons, this time from the Lion sur Mer side of the beach, clearly to avoid the 37mm AA gun now parked near the trenches. The Allied commander landed more Shermans, and a unit of Wolverines at LSM, ready for the punch that would take them into the town, and beyond to the rocket launcher unit. All that stood between them and that objective was a thin grey line of dug in troops (in bullet proof cover), 3 PzKfw IVs, 2 Pak 40s, and 5 StuGs, who now seemed to be heading towards Ouistraham and the Orne River bridges.




Allied Armour about to crush the entrenched Germans, bunkers burning fiercely as shells start exploding in the German fortifications...but saved by the end of play. 

The sun set all to soon, with the Allies still on the Beaches, and the objectives still in German hands. Technically a victory for the Germans, as the Allies were still trapped on the beaches. Given another turn or two a totally different outcome may have transpired. Pity we had to vacate the hall. Things were just getting interesting...

Tune in again  for part 2 of our 3-part D-Day landing story: Lion-sur-Mer and Hermanville.

What did Herr General Oberst learn?
1. When you have artillery dug in to attack a beach, make sure that they are within reach !
2. We were limited in setting up our boards and terrain due to net getting access to the hall the previous night. The terrain was not entirely what I had planned or envisaged as a result, but it worked ok. We lost 2-3 hours' playing time, and couldn't finish our game due to the time constraints this causedt. The day went well though, despite all of this.
3. As an exhibition game it went well, giving several newcomers their first taste of wargaming, and for some a first time away from WH 40K:


Visiting 40K playes getting their first taste of FoW



Break-through on LSM Beach about to happen, tightly clustered armour from an inexperienced  gamer offering a tempting target for the old hands, also now within range of the Nebelwerfers, and 
3 PzKfw are about to come charging around the corner of the double-story holiday villa at right. 
And then the sun set. Drat!