Post by RedsandRoyals on Jun 8, 2021 19:51:40 GMT -5
On the 5th, my local game store decided to celebrate D-Day (and the lifting of mask restrictions for those of us who are vaccinated) by holding a Flames of War megabattle. It featured two beaches linked by a central table with an airborne landing.
"Gunord" Beach, a consolidation of Gold, Juno, and Sword. Canadians, French Commandos, and some allied armor would land here. Caen and the airborne landing zones can be seen behind it on the central table. The 21st Panzer and 503rd Heavy Tank Battalion (with a full company of 12 tigers!) would spawn there, while my british airborne would deploy in the fields nearby.
Omaha where Americans would land. You can also see American airborne forces in the upper right corner, and the bridge they had to capture on the left. My friend Ty built this table (although the roads, fields, hedgerows, etc were added later).
Another view of "Gunord" with the german beach defenders deployed. That's the commander of the 503rd Heavy Panzer Battalion in the background surveying the battlefield and the bridge leading to Gunord beach.
The plan was for the airborne forces to secure the two bridges and hold them against the German counter attack while the allied forces stormed the beach defenses. However, after a brief discussion between allied commanders, it was decided both airborne forces would secure the bridge behind Omaha. The Commonwealth generals were confident they could break out without support from the rear, and it was felt that the distance from the British airborne deployment to the Gunord bridge was too far, and the paras would likely be caught out by the Panzers before they had secured it. This turned out to be a fortuitous decision.
The first waves hit the beach! Canadians advance on the 352nd's trenches at Gunord.
Americans land at Omaha. As you can see, more armor would land in the 2nd wave....
Meanwhile, the British paras advance on the bridge from the Caen side of the river, while US paras come from the Omaha side. I had spent the path month cranking out 50+ infantry teams for this event, and got a lot of compliments on the resulting fully painted british para army, so I was very pleased.
Other paras move up into ambush on the roads leading to the bridge, waiting for the panzers to arrive...
The American second wave arrives at the beach! Direct firing self propelled howitzers cover the advance of the infantry up the table. If you look closely, you can see my friend Ty's forces heading up the bluffs in the background....
Breakthrough! In an epic assault, Ty's infantry slams into the breach, overruns an MG nest, crashes through the defensive fire of frantically re-deploying beach defenders, and cuts a hole through the German defenses. In that single assault he knocked out the PaK 40 bunker, two MG nests, two mortar teams, and forced back an infantry platoon. This cracked Omaha wide open and would be the deciding moment on the American table.
What was going on elsewhere? Sadly I don't have pictures from this stage, but the Commonwealth forces were getting stuffed on Gunord. The Canadians were advancing bravely but being mowed down on the beaches, while the french commandos and Allied armor were working their way over the sand dunes for a flank assault. The US paras were advancing cautiously on the bridge after their recon section of jeeps was bushwhacked by waiting stugs, but there was good news from the British paras- they had managed to secure one side of their end of the bridge by sweeping away a mortar, MG nest, and two AT guns, and were advancing to clear the other side. But panzer engines could be heard in Caen....
The 21st Panzer arrives! The tigers- all 14 of them- headed for Gunord. This was bad for the Germans since it meant they only had two more tigers and some Panzer IV's to stop the hordes of allied armor pouring off Omaha. Having successfully cleared the Caen-side of Omaha's bridge, the British airborne threw themselves at the German panzers to buy time for the Americans to secure the other side of the bridge. The plan worked, a little too well. The panzers overran the brits (although Jerry lost a Tiger and four or five other tanks in the process), but the American airborne finally arrived in force to secure their side of the bridge and cross it while Allied armor from Omaha arrived in support. Over on Gunord, the Tigers broke free and began engaging the French forces that had finally broken through the flank of the beach.
At that point we called it. Gunord was firmly held by the Germans, I had so badly damaged the 21st Panzer that they couldn't stop the Americans at Omaha, and everyone was pretty tired. Final results were a tie. There were a lot of valuable lessons learned about running big games (and D-Day) and next year we're planning on running a Cobra/Totalize game since that lends itself more to the large amounts of tanks most people own.
I was quite pleased with my paras even though my command was destroyed. Despite facing a force 125% their size over the course of the game (just counting what actually shot or assaulted them), they still took the more heavily defended side of the Omaha bridge and delayed and damaged 21st Panzer enough to prevent an Allied total defeat. They wiped out an infantry platoon, gutted another, destroyed 4 AT guns, 2 MG nests, a mortar, a Company HQ, and knocked out 4 or 5 panzers, 2 tigers (my Typhoons got another one), and an AA halftrack. Their undoing was a truly horrible round of assaults during the panzer counter attack. I couldn't roll above a 2 to save my life (or theirs). I had a blast during the game, and as the grandson of a D-Day veteran, I was happy circumstances* allowed me to go out and do something to celebrate the anniversary in some small way.
Our next big game is scheduled for August on the eastern front. I hope to have 100pts of Germans, Hungarians, and Russians painted up for that one...
*A quick note about masks: Almost 60% of Virginia is fully vaccinated, and last I heard our part of VA was close to herd immunity. The overwhelming majority of our players were fully vaccinated but some still chose to wear masks to be sure, despite VA mandates allowing them to remove it and have group events like this. Don't worry, we game safe!
"Gunord" Beach, a consolidation of Gold, Juno, and Sword. Canadians, French Commandos, and some allied armor would land here. Caen and the airborne landing zones can be seen behind it on the central table. The 21st Panzer and 503rd Heavy Tank Battalion (with a full company of 12 tigers!) would spawn there, while my british airborne would deploy in the fields nearby.
Omaha where Americans would land. You can also see American airborne forces in the upper right corner, and the bridge they had to capture on the left. My friend Ty built this table (although the roads, fields, hedgerows, etc were added later).
Another view of "Gunord" with the german beach defenders deployed. That's the commander of the 503rd Heavy Panzer Battalion in the background surveying the battlefield and the bridge leading to Gunord beach.
The plan was for the airborne forces to secure the two bridges and hold them against the German counter attack while the allied forces stormed the beach defenses. However, after a brief discussion between allied commanders, it was decided both airborne forces would secure the bridge behind Omaha. The Commonwealth generals were confident they could break out without support from the rear, and it was felt that the distance from the British airborne deployment to the Gunord bridge was too far, and the paras would likely be caught out by the Panzers before they had secured it. This turned out to be a fortuitous decision.
The first waves hit the beach! Canadians advance on the 352nd's trenches at Gunord.
Americans land at Omaha. As you can see, more armor would land in the 2nd wave....
Meanwhile, the British paras advance on the bridge from the Caen side of the river, while US paras come from the Omaha side. I had spent the path month cranking out 50+ infantry teams for this event, and got a lot of compliments on the resulting fully painted british para army, so I was very pleased.
Other paras move up into ambush on the roads leading to the bridge, waiting for the panzers to arrive...
The American second wave arrives at the beach! Direct firing self propelled howitzers cover the advance of the infantry up the table. If you look closely, you can see my friend Ty's forces heading up the bluffs in the background....
Breakthrough! In an epic assault, Ty's infantry slams into the breach, overruns an MG nest, crashes through the defensive fire of frantically re-deploying beach defenders, and cuts a hole through the German defenses. In that single assault he knocked out the PaK 40 bunker, two MG nests, two mortar teams, and forced back an infantry platoon. This cracked Omaha wide open and would be the deciding moment on the American table.
What was going on elsewhere? Sadly I don't have pictures from this stage, but the Commonwealth forces were getting stuffed on Gunord. The Canadians were advancing bravely but being mowed down on the beaches, while the french commandos and Allied armor were working their way over the sand dunes for a flank assault. The US paras were advancing cautiously on the bridge after their recon section of jeeps was bushwhacked by waiting stugs, but there was good news from the British paras- they had managed to secure one side of their end of the bridge by sweeping away a mortar, MG nest, and two AT guns, and were advancing to clear the other side. But panzer engines could be heard in Caen....
The 21st Panzer arrives! The tigers- all 14 of them- headed for Gunord. This was bad for the Germans since it meant they only had two more tigers and some Panzer IV's to stop the hordes of allied armor pouring off Omaha. Having successfully cleared the Caen-side of Omaha's bridge, the British airborne threw themselves at the German panzers to buy time for the Americans to secure the other side of the bridge. The plan worked, a little too well. The panzers overran the brits (although Jerry lost a Tiger and four or five other tanks in the process), but the American airborne finally arrived in force to secure their side of the bridge and cross it while Allied armor from Omaha arrived in support. Over on Gunord, the Tigers broke free and began engaging the French forces that had finally broken through the flank of the beach.
At that point we called it. Gunord was firmly held by the Germans, I had so badly damaged the 21st Panzer that they couldn't stop the Americans at Omaha, and everyone was pretty tired. Final results were a tie. There were a lot of valuable lessons learned about running big games (and D-Day) and next year we're planning on running a Cobra/Totalize game since that lends itself more to the large amounts of tanks most people own.
I was quite pleased with my paras even though my command was destroyed. Despite facing a force 125% their size over the course of the game (just counting what actually shot or assaulted them), they still took the more heavily defended side of the Omaha bridge and delayed and damaged 21st Panzer enough to prevent an Allied total defeat. They wiped out an infantry platoon, gutted another, destroyed 4 AT guns, 2 MG nests, a mortar, a Company HQ, and knocked out 4 or 5 panzers, 2 tigers (my Typhoons got another one), and an AA halftrack. Their undoing was a truly horrible round of assaults during the panzer counter attack. I couldn't roll above a 2 to save my life (or theirs). I had a blast during the game, and as the grandson of a D-Day veteran, I was happy circumstances* allowed me to go out and do something to celebrate the anniversary in some small way.
Our next big game is scheduled for August on the eastern front. I hope to have 100pts of Germans, Hungarians, and Russians painted up for that one...
*A quick note about masks: Almost 60% of Virginia is fully vaccinated, and last I heard our part of VA was close to herd immunity. The overwhelming majority of our players were fully vaccinated but some still chose to wear masks to be sure, despite VA mandates allowing them to remove it and have group events like this. Don't worry, we game safe!
