D-Day at Last: Kapiti Wargames Club Open Day

D-Day: Sword Beach at Kapiti Wargames Club Open Day 2014.

We are barely 3 weeks out from the 70th anniversary of the D-Day Landings on 6 June 2014.

I have been preparing for several months for a large-scale 20mm Flames of War game. The boards are painted and flocked, most of the troops, armour and planes ready, bar some national markings that got left off. Anyhow we loaded the boards and miniatures and headed off to Paraparaumu. Unfortunalely quite a few of our Generals, experienced and otherwise had to pull out either due to business or family commitments.

Les could only make it for the opening volleys of the game, and had to leave early. Others could not make it at all. Suitable replacements were found, never the less, and a great day of gaming was had by all!

Protagonists at Sword Beach
Allied forces attacking Gold, Juno, and Sword Beaches faced

German units of LXXXIV Corps under General der Artillerie Erich Marcks:

                                               716.er Inf Div. Insignia              21.er Pz Div Insignia

• 716th (Static) Infantry Division under Generalleutnant Wilhelm Richter. At 7,000 troops, the division was significantly understrength, and included Ost Truppen, Soviet PoWs who elected to serve in German Uniform rather than go to PoW camps.
• 736th Infantry Regiment
• 1716th Artillery Regiment
• 21st Panzer Division under Generalmajor Edgar Feuchtinger: Included 146 tanks and 50 assault guns, plus supporting infantry and artillery.

British and Canadian zones (The latter landed at Colville, ignored for purposes of this game)

Royal Marines Commandos attached to 3rd Infantry Division move inland from Sword Beach, 6 June 1944
Commander, Second Army (Britain and Canada): Lieutenant General Sir Miles Dempsey

Overall, the Second Army contingent consisted of 83,115 men, 61,715 of them British. The nominally British air and naval support units included a large number of personnel from Allied nations, including several RAF squadrons manned almost exclusively by overseas air crew.

                                                     
                                                       3rd Infantry Corps Insignia

• British I Corps, commanded by Lieutenant General John Crocker
• British 3rd Infantry Division: Major General Tom Rennie

• British 6th Airborne Division: Major General R.N. Gale
• 79th Armoured Division: Major General Percy Hobart

Facing the landing beaches from the sea: Ouistreham, Lion-sur Mer and farms outside Hermanville-sur-mer in the Distance. The German HQ is situated in the Casino Riva Bella, with the artillery observation tower at left (Allied and German objective) LeFH 18 battery at Hermanville, protected by Flak 38 and Pak 40, Vierling Flak on Halftrack. The road from Hermanville runs down the centre, with the road to Merville leading off the board to the left, Luc -sur-Mer to the right. Heavy MGs on Pillbox and bunker

Luc-sur-Mer, with artillery emplacement (88mm) and 75mm turret bunker (Right), Ost truppen dug in (The weakest link) Heavy MG in pillbox. Road to Lion-sur-Mer and Ouistreham to left, Colville to right.

Nebelwerfer rocket artillery in the fields beyong Luc-sur-Mer (substituting for Wurframen static rockets, as I have none), again supported by an 88 and a 37mm Flak on a halftrack.

Ouistreham harbour and fuel Deport (Objective 2) Protected by Light (bipod) and heavy (Pillbox) MG, 20mm twin AA gun  and Flak Vierling, Ost Truppen of 716 Div.

Rockets at the ready, some Ost Truppen to protect the artillery, and the Luftwaffe half-heartedly manning their 88mm Flak

Heer (Wehrmacht) Artillery. They accounted for more Allied casualties in WW2 than all the Tiger tanks put together. In this case LeFH18 (Light Field Howitzers) 105 mm guns.

The Guns of Merville Battery: Objective 3: 6th Airborne: Parachute brigade

Pegasus Bridge (Orne River): Objective 4: 6th Airborne: Air landing Companies 

22nd Dragoons Sappers (Demolition teams) are the first to land

RAF supplying areal support with Hawker Typhoons. Nick, the Supreme Allied commander rains rockets on the dug in Germans of  716. Infaterie Div.

AVRE Bunker-busters, Hobart's "Funnies" arrive at long last to swiftly clear the defenses at Luc-sur-Mer

LCVPs and DUKWs landing more sappers at Lion-sur-Mer. Unfortunately for them within range of the Nebelwerfers and the heavy machine-guns

Stugs of the 21. Panzerdivision arrive via Hermanville en route to Lion-sur-Mer, and Ouistreham

Yours truly deploying the 21.Pz Division Stug platoon

Sherman wade ashore near the Casino

The second wave of Allied Commanders achieve a break-through at Luc-sur-Mer. The Allies suffered an unusually high rate of casualties amongst both commanders and field officers. 

Supreme Commander Nick urging his generals to increased efforts. He ascribed the high rate of loss of field officers to the Germans being instructed to pick out the British officers.

Hobart's funnies, Shermans and Wolverines pouring from assaulting landing craft and into the gap created by the Dragoon Sappers, but too little, too late ?

Strange how games and history often reflect what actually happened given a well written rule set.
The Allies knew that the Germans would be a hard nut to crack!
Full Batrep to follow...

Generals Repose: Nick and Sam havin' a break at the end of the day

Last prep before D-day

Invasion preparations for D-Day

Really just a quick post of the boards and some prepping taking place prior to yesterday's D-Day Sword Beach Invasion

Hemmbalk and sandbag production line

Tobruk pits, signs and telegraph posts, Czech Hedhogs taking shape

I have not modeled an aircraft since 1981, so this was quite an interesting experience. My skills have improved, but I still struggled with getting those invasion stripes right on an odd-shaped  fuselage! (almost pear-shaped in cross section)

Purposely left the tail of the Horsa detachable, as to reflect Airlanding platoons and their equipment being unloaded after the landing

A river (and a canal) flows through it: Making rivers

Sword Beach: Lion/Hermanville -sur-Mer and Luc-sur-Mer taking shape.

21.Panzer Division inspecting the building work on the observation tower at the (as yet unbuilt) Casino at Riva Bella

Harbour inlet to Ouistreham, Pegasus Bridge taking shape, as does the Orne River Canal and lock

D-Day The quickening: AS51 Horsa lands on my Workbench

The Quickening: Airspeed 51 Horsa Glider arrives

Over the weekend I took some time to progress the landing zones for the D-Day games. At lunch-time I discovered that the Airspeed Horsa 51 glider for the airborne part of the game had arrived. Yay!

Transport for the 6th Airborne arrives

Progress Report:

The Playing Board:
The boards: The harbour of Ouistreham and the beaches at Luc-sur-Mer and Hermanville -sur-Mer have been created and painted,  the board depicting harbour, lock and canal,  rocky and sandy shores, deep and shallow water, the inter-tidal zone and the sea wall; as well as the villages and grassy hinterland.

Tank traps and concrete bunkers, hedgehogs and dragons teeth - all ready to roll

Buildings: The concrete blocks for much of the harbour and German  shore battery are made and painted. The buildings for most villages and the harbour installations are ready, or in the post.

 I still need to build the observation bunker at Riva Bella.
The Pegasus Bridge is under construction, and the canal bridge is ready.

Vehicles and planes
I have built two DUKWs and a Higgins Boat, as well as an LCT. Probably need another one of each at least. An RAF launch is half constructed.
The British armoured squadrons are ready to roll, as are the soft-skinned vehicles. Still need to attend to Hobart's Funnies- need 2 x ARVEs and Sherman Crabs

As for the German side- "Alles fertig und in ordnung!" (Ready and in order)

Sword Beach: Ouistreham: The Plot thickens

D-Day Wargaming ahead: Kapiti Wargames Club Open Day

D-day gaming coming up on 10th May 2014:

So I have been plotting and planning on the D-Day gaming ahead. I have drawn up the plan (not to scale) of the game board, with areas representing the actual landing beach, the German Defenses and the villages of Collville -, Luc- and Hermanville-sur-Mer, and the small harbour at Ouistreham, the Orne river and Canal, the Orne river bridge, and the bridge now known as Pegasus Bridge. And the Merville Battery thrown in for good measure.

Historical Background:
Ouistreham was the key to the Allied attack at Sword Beach, as it was the gateway into the Orne, the Caen canal, and the cross-road hub town of Caen. Seizing control of the town would give the Allies a small port (nowhere near the size needed for sustaining supply lines, but useful, none-the-less), and control of the river and canal bridges so as to prevent German armor from hitting their left flank.

The Germans, needless to say, knew how important the town could be and made preparations.  The casino was retrofitted with a bunker in the basement and gun that could hit ships at sea as well as targets closer in. Other fortifications went in as well, and in a very flat area, a towering bunker designed to withstand bombs, artillery fire, and even gas/chemical attacks, was built behind an existing house to help disguise it a bit.  This was not a gun bunker - it was far more dangerous than that.  It was an observation bunker with a very accurate rangefinder for the time.

Keiffer Commando forces in house-to-house fighting in the advance towards Bella Riva. 

Duplex Drive Sherman leading the spear-head

Not only did the bunker survive the day, but the story of how it fell brings a smile to the face.  On D-Day, the bunker was bypassed after troops came under machine gun fire and grenade attack when approaching it. After the battle the structure fell silent, and it was presumed abandoned. On 9 June 1943, a Lt. Bob Orrell of the Royal Engineers was tasked with assessing and cataloging construction materials left behind in the Ouistreham area by the retreating Germans. On inspection he noted that the bunker was closed up,  and apparently locked from the inside.  He was ordered to investigate further, so he went back with a mobile crane and three assistants.

Observation Bunker 

The door was still locked, so he tried explosives: To no effect. They then tied other means of forcing the door, but finally went back to (more) explosives and succeeded in forcing the door open.

It was then that a voice called down in perfect English that it was "Okay, come on up !"  To which the good Lt. responded that he could not fly, and whoever was up there should come on down.  To his amazement 53 Germans descended and surrendered to a force of one junior officer and his three assistants.

The German HQ housed in the casino was not set back from the water, on a hill, as portrayed in the movie The Longest Day.  It was in fact set effectively on the beach with a ditch/canal in front.  The Keiffer (Free French) Commando forces did indeed take it; and also destroyed it, and today a new casino sits on the site.

One thing to consider about the troops making the beach assault though, is them having to cross as much as  300 meters of wet sand with absolutely no cover of any kind.  Because the invasion was scheduled for a period of extremely low tides, many troops coming in had to charge across up to 300 meters of open beach before hitting the edge of the beach and finding any potential cover.

Some inspiration from fellow gamers: Terrain and toy soldiers (clicky)

We plan to use the FoW rules from the D-Day Minus One and D-Day books, effectively having 3 games in one:

Thus a large table:

Allied Targets:
1. Beach assault, overcome German beach defenses, take the villages, including Oistreham; open the road towards Caen  - Beach Assault rules
2. Commando Assault: Take Ouistreham fishing harbour, knock out  defenses, Casino and  Riva Bella , link up with Airborne assaults at bridges/ Merville Battery - Beach assault or seaborne commando assault rules
3. Airborne Assault: Parachute and glider landings on Pegasus Bridge, Orne River bridge and Merville Battery

German Targets:
1. Prevent Allies from taking Ouistreham and beach (-sur Mer) villages, the German HQ in the Casino Riva Bella ; and establishing a foothold on the continent
2. Protect road to Caen, including bridge access across Orne river and canal
3. Protect Merville Battery

To make things a bit more interesting we have decided to throw in a few historical wildcards. At the beginning of the game we'll roll to see if any specific conditions may affect the way that the game plays out:

Allied Wildcards:
Fortune cards:

• Successful  preliminary bombarding: Roll D6: On roll of 5 or 6 Allied player gets additional round of preliminary shelling , 3 or 4 re-rolls on fails to wound, 1 or 2 re-roll fails to hit  
• Mill pond: Weather and tide does not affect landing,  +1 to all rolls caused by weather effects
• Partisan attack: Place one infantry section within 24 inches, but more than 12 inches away from German infantry troops. These count as being in ambush, Conscripts, fearless

Misfortune cards:

• Wild weather: Weather and tide affects landing severely,  -1 to all rolls caused by weather effects
• Beach defenses effective: - Roll D6: On roll of 5 or 6 Allied player has to roll for every landing craft or tank as it gets into the landing zone: A rolls of 1 makes vessel capsize/tank flood, 2  or 3 stranded until next turn (caught up in obstacle but freed, can land cargo next turn); 4 or 5 delayed (can attempt landing again next turn) ,  6 delayed and return to landing ship (sea zone) (can attempt again next turn)  
• Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine interception:  Roll D6: 1-3:  Luftwaffe available Roll again- determines level of availability. 4-6;  Kriegsmarine (U and S-boats) Same rule, but can only target landing craft (No extra cost to axis player)

German Wildcards:
Fortune cards:

• Luftwaffe cover available: Roll to see level of cover (no extra cost)
• The Fuhrer's Blessing: Rommel takes command (All Axis troop morale +1, to max fearless veteran; Armour support arrives on  D6 Roll: 1-2 (turn 4) 3-4 (turn 3) 5-6 (turn 2)
• Hitler's Fire-brigade: SS Panzer Division and Panzer Lehr become available D6 1-3 (turn 4) D6 4-6 (turn 3)

Misfortune cards:

• Partisan attack: Allied player places one infantry section within 24 inches, but more than 12 inches away from German infantry troops. These count as being in ambush, Conscripts, fearless
• Turncoat Osttruppen: Russian POW troops: First contact: Roll Morale test: D6. Roll for every unit: On roll of 1 surrender without fight, roll of 2: -1 to morale; 3-6 morale per book. German player can motivate using German Oficer, sacrificing one platoon unit a-la- USSR Commisar rules.
• Caught pants down: All troop morale -1 for first 2 rounds,  Armour support arrives on D6 Roll: 1-2 (turn 4) 3-4 (turn 3) 5-6 (turn 2) German troops cannot make storm trooper moves first 2 turns. 

Sword Beach: D-Day Gaming: The History reviewed

Sword Beach Landings on D-day

I've been reading up on D-Day with regards the Sword Beach Landings. I have chosen this landing for our D-Day Commemorative game mainly because the bulk of my 20mm  infantry models are British, and I don't think I'll have enough time to  paint up my US troops. I have enough Airborne and commando models to include the airborne assault. My allied armour has been left without national and unit  identification markings on purpose, so that they can be used on the Eastern front and for US troops as well. I will have to build some Hobart's Funnnies, as I don't have neither Crab or Crocodiles nor AVREs. We will use FoW rules, as my models are based for this rule set.

Sword Beach
SWORD BEACH was the objective of 3rd (British) Infantry Division. They were to advance inland as far as Caen, and line up with British Airborne forces east of the Orne River/Caen Canal. The Orne River bridges had been seized in late at night on the 5th of June by a glider-borne reinforced company commanded by Maj. John Howard. As at the other beaches, British forces penetrated quite a ways inland after breaking the opposition at water's edge. Unfortunately, the objective of Caen was probably asking too much of a single infantry division, especially given the traffic jams and resistance encountered further inland.

1st Special Service (Commando) brigade commanded by Lord Lovat, linked up in the morning with Howard's force at Pegasus bridge on the British left. Fierce opposition from the 2lst Panzer and later the 12th SS Panzer division prevented the British from reaching Caen on the 6th. Indeed, Caen was not taken until late June.

The landing beach
Sword Beach occupied an 8-km stretch of the French coastline from Lion-sur-Mer on the west to the city of Ouistreham, at the mouth of the Orne River, on the east. The area had vacation homes and tourist hotels and restaurants located behind a seawall. It was 15 km) north of the city of Caen. All major roads in this area ran through Caen, and it was a key city to both the Allies and the Germans for transportation and maneuver purposes.

The Germans had fortified the area with relatively light defenses consisting of beach obstacles and fortified emplacements in the sand dunes. For the most part, however, the defense of the beach was anchored on 75-mm guns located at the coastal town of Merville, some 8 km  to the east across the Orne River estuary, and on bigger 155-mm guns located some 32 km east at Le Havre. A few miles inland from the beach were 88-mm guns capable of supporting the machine guns and mortars that were placed in the dunes and villas and that constituted the Germans’ first line of defense. There were also antitank ditches and mines as well as huge concrete walls blocking the streets of the towns. The German 716th Infantry Division—in particular, the 736th and 125th regiments—along with forces of the 21st Panzer Division were in the vicinity and were capable of participating in defensive or offensive operations. To the east, across the Dives River, lay the 711th Division.

Sword Beach lay in the area of landing beaches assigned to the British 2nd Army,commanded by LtGen Miles Dempsey. It was divided by Allied planners into four sectors named (from west to east) Oboe, Peter, Queen, and Roger. Elements of the South Lancashire Regiment were to assault Peter sector on the right, the Suffolk Regiment the centre in Queen sector, and the East Yorkshire Regiment Roger sector on the left. The objective of the 3rd Division was to push across Sword Beach and pass through Ouistreham to capture Caen and the important Carpiquet airfield nearby. Attached commandos, under Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, had the mission of fighting their way off the beach and pushing some 5 km (3 miles) inland toward the Orne River and Caen Canal bridges, where they were to link up with the airborne forces.

The invading forces landed at 0725 hours on D-Day and were greeted with moderate fire. They were able to put out suppressing fire, and by 0800 hours the fighting was mostly inland. By 1300 the commandos had achieved their most important objective: they had linked up with airborne troops at the bridges over the Orne waterways. On the right flank the British had been unable to link up with Canadian forces from Juno Beach, and at 1600 hours tank forces and mechanized infantry units from the 21st Panzer Division launched the only serious German counterattack of D-Day. The 192nd Panzer Grenadier Regiment actually reached the beach at 2000 hours, but the division’s 98 panzers were halted by antitank weapons, air strikes, and Allied tanks themselves. The counterattack was stopped.

At the end of the day, the British had landed 29,000 men and had taken 630 casualties. German casualties were much higher; many Germans had been taken prisoner. However, for the Allies the optimistic objectives of Caen and the Carpiquet aerodrome were still a long 5 km away.

 

Landings later in the day, once beach defences had been overcome - note the absence of helmets

Casualties and AVRE, and Wolverine, not Achilles, as first captioned, on the beach
 (Note lack of muzzle break, therefore not the 17-pounder gun, thanks for pointing that out Wingco Luddite!)

Difference between Wolverine and Achilles M10 Variants

Orne and Dives rivers air-assault zones
Paratroopers from the British 6th Airborne Division, Major General Richard Gale commanding, were to be landed at night onto the left flank of the Normandy Invasion area in order to help isolate the battlefield for the seaborne invasion force that was scheduled to land on nearby Sword Beach at dawn. The drop zones were labeled X, Y, N, K, and V. X and Y were glider landing zones near the two bridges over the Orne River and the Caen Canal. V was a glider landing zone near the Merville battery, and N and K were on the Ranville ridge separating the Orne and Dives rivers.

German forces in the area consisted of elements of the 716th Infantry Division. The dominant defensive position was the battery at Merville, with four guns of undetermined size fortified in hard casemates.

The objectives of the 6th Airborne were to seize, intact, the critical bridges over the Orne River and Caen Canal near the village of Bénouville, securing vital exit routes for the forces scheduled to land at Sword Beach; to destroy the bridges over the Dives River, thus denying the Germans a route to the invasion area from the east; to hold the dividing ridge between the Dives and the Orne from an expected German counterattack; and, finally, to destroy the Merville battery, which threatened Sword Beach with its big guns.

At 0016 hours on D-Day, gliders containing Company D, 2nd Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, commanded by Major John Howard, touched down precisely on target at the bridges. Within 10 minutes and with the loss of only two men dead, the daring coup de main placed both bridges in Allied hands. Howard’s company thus became the first attackers of the Normandy Invasion on French soil and the first unit to achieve its objective on D-Day. The Caen Canal bridge was soon immortalized as Pegasus Bridge, named after the insignia of the 6th Airborne Division.

Pegasus Bridge

The silencing of the Merville battery fell to Lieutenant Colonel Terence Otway’s 9th Battalion. The 9th, however, had a bad drop, and the attack began with only 150 men of the 750-man force. The daring attack captured the battery at a cost of half the attacking force. The defending Germans paid a terrible price: only 22 men of the 200-man garrison were uninjured.

The rest of the 6th Airborne troopers continued to land throughout the night, although many were scattered. Nevertheless, small parties found one another and managed to destroy five bridges over the Dives.

By morning, as the invasion force rolled ashore on Sword Beach, the left flank of the area was indeed secure. By 1300 hours Howard’s glider troops at the bridges had connected with elements of Lord Lovat’s 1st Commando Brigade. As evening fell on June 6, the 6th Airborne was generally in place and had achieved its objectives.

Info from Encyclopaedia Brittannica and various internet sources. Happy to reference at request. No copyright infringement intended