Sword Beach and the Orne Bridgehead, June 6, 1944

[MengJiao]

  Sword Beach was the oddest of the beaches in many ways: the fartherest east, with the best sea state, the smallest with the most naval firepower concentrated on it and the highest proportion of armor in the assault waves and far more commandos coming in as well.
   I ran the scenario (the initial plan) and so far things are only slightly behind what happened historically (Historically, Hermanville was in allied hands by 8:30, here it is about 9 and the Osttruppen are still holding on).  Also loses are a bit less than they were historically, so maybe it all evens out:

[MengJiao]

  Sword Beach was the oddest of the beaches in many ways: the fartherest east, with the best sea state, the smallest with the most naval firepower concentrated on it and the highest proportion of armor in the assault waves and far more commandos coming in as well.
   I ran the scenario (the initial plan) and so far things are only slightly behind what happened historically (Historically, Hermanville was in allied hands by 8:30, here it is about 9 and the Osttruppen are still holding on).  Also loses are a bit less than they were historically, so maybe it all evens out:

  Now 11am and the advance from Sword Beach is definitely behind the historical advance.  The 27th Armored Bde, the 8th Bde and the bicycle commandos are in a massive set of columns or traffic jams too far to the west to be where they are needed to support the 6th Airborne off the photo area to the east.  Historically the bicycle commandos reached the Orne bridges around 11 am and in this case they won't get there until 1pm at the earliest.  However, two other British infantry Bdes have landed and they might well be able to do more than they did historically.
21 Panzer is approaching from the SE.

[MengJiao]

  Here it is about noon and the 8th Bde is deploying to attack south and east with a lot of armored support.  This is nearly as important as a way of clearing the traffic jams by getting the troops out of column and into the fields as it is for pushing back the Germans.  The bicycle commandos (in column on bicycles) and the Middlesex (heavy weapons on carriers) are the two big columns coming in from the north at this point.

[Boggit]

Going well so far. No sign of 21Pz and 12SS yet?

[MengJiao]

Going well so far. No sign of 21Pz and 12SS yet?

  12ss won't be turning up (scenario ends on the night of the 8th and the 12th was still involved in stopping the Canadian 3rd Div).  The 21st is on hand but has had problems with airstrikes, naval gunfire and the unlikely event of bombs hitting the middle of Caen.  In the next image you will see some of the 21st's odd formations, for example companies of mixed sp 105 guns and 75mm AT on Hotchkiss tracked tank chasses.  They are rated as pretty effective (as good as Fireflies for gunnery).  The surprise for me is all of the 346/711 KGs entering from the east.  The Airborne have blown 1 bridge but have 4 to go and that still won't stop the 346/711 KGs.  Maybe the bicycle commandos will arrive in time to save the day.  And Krug is still in action.  Historically, he hid in Hillman (which has been ahistorically been taken about 4 hours early in this case) until the morning of the 7th before surrendering.  So there are a lot of variables getting thrown into the mix.

[MengJiao]

  Here it is about noon and the 8th Bde is deploying to attack south and east with a lot of armored support.  This is nearly as important as a way of clearing the traffic jams by getting the troops out of column and into the fields as it is for pushing back the Germans.  The bicycle commandos (in column on bicycles) and the Middlesex (heavy weapons on carriers) are the two big columns coming in from the north at this point.

  About 1:30:  8th Bde and Middlesex start to push south.  21 pz has started to deploy as well.  By 3pm they will even have their indirect fire 88s hooked up and ready to shoot.

[MengJiao]

  Here it is about noon and the 8th Bde is deploying to attack south and east with a lot of armored support.  This is nearly as important as a way of clearing the traffic jams by getting the troops out of column and into the fields as it is for pushing back the Germans.  The bicycle commandos (in column on bicycles) and the Middlesex (heavy weapons on carriers) are the two big columns coming in from the north at this point.

  About 1:30:  8th Bde and Middlesex start to push south.  21 pz has started to deploy as well.  By 3pm they will even have their indirect fire 88s hooked up and ready to shoot.

  About 2pm:

   The bicycle commandos link up with the airborne.  Meanwhile the airborne have blown up 3 out of 5 of the bridges over the Dives and la Divette.  These things are all happening about 3 hours later than they did in reality.  Maybe the game understates the speed of the bicycles and the enthusiasm of bridge-blowing enthusiasts.

[MengJiao]

  About 2pm:

   The bicycle commandos link up with the airborne.  Meanwhile the airborne have blown up 3 out of 5 of the bridges over the Dives and la Divette.  These things are all happening about 3 hours later than they did in reality.  Maybe the game understates the speed of the bicycles and the enthusiasm of bridge-blowing enthusiasts.

  About 3pm, 21Pz makes some small counter attacks:

[MengJiao]

  About 2pm:

   The bicycle commandos link up with the airborne.  Meanwhile the airborne have blown up 3 out of 5 of the bridges over the Dives and la Divette.  These things are all happening about 3 hours later than they did in reality.  Maybe the game understates the speed of the bicycles and the enthusiasm of bridge-blowing enthusiasts.

  About 3pm, 21Pz makes some small counter attacks:

  The airborne had already used their divisional move to react to the 21 PZ and here the bicycle commandos cross into the Orne Bridgehead and the 5th para starts reacting too.

[MengJiao]

  The airborne had already used their divisional move to react to the 21 PZ and here the bicycle commandos cross into the Orne Bridgehead and the 5th para starts reacting too.

About 6pm, Krug assembles what is left of the 716's mobile units (except for some ostruppen on the other side of the Orne) and counterattacks with some armored support (he will soon face most of 2 British brigades and some commandos so this might not end well):

[Bison]

Holy mass number of counters!  Fantastic.

[MengJiao]

Holy mass number of counters!  Fantastic.

   It's a monster!  This is the shortest and smallest of the advanced scenarios.  Unlike most monster games I've played, the level of research and detail in this thing is astounding. 

   I started this run of the scenario mostly to see if I could get the beach and airborne landing subroutines working at all.  Things went well on the beach, so I kept going -- at first mostly to see how close the reality the game was going (the main differences were that getting ashore went faster than in the historical event and the airborne didn't get all the bridges blown) and then because -- once you get the thing running -- the game has a nice momentum with the chit-pull and special events things.  I'm also learning to attack, which is not easy in this system, at least for me.  You basically have to set up as much of the attack force in column as you can and then take your hits.  This has worked usually for the Brits and generally not so much for the Germans.  27 Armored Bde and KG Rauch collided head on and things went badly for the Germans, though it was close for a few chit-pulls.

[MengJiao]

27 Armored Bde and KG Rauch collided head on and things went badly for the Germans, though it was close for a few chit-pulls.


   7:30 pm -- three chits worth of German attacks (KG Luck, 21 PZ and German Direct command) interspaced with 3rd Para and some special naval fire.
After the fiasco with KG Rauch, I've been more cautious with the Germans, but they are getting some reinforcements soon so I pushed the attacks a little harder --probably a bad idea:

  Yes, it was a bad idea.  Two or three things went wrong late in the afternoon:  The 27th Armored Bde attacked on the far west and punched a big hole in the Germanified French armor; Naval gunfire hit what was left of the German artillery west of the Orne; KGs Krug and Rauch seemingly luckily got to move first on the 9pm turn and shifted their armor to block the hole in the West and then right after that the British 185 Bde attacked in the east and -- though they are the worst-rated British troops -- they are still better than Krug and they rolled well and now the German front is crumbling and there are no chits exept 21 PZ, 716 and Direct to use and not many troops left to use them on.  185 is 3 kilometers north of Caen, night is falling and the British have half a dozen chits to go on that part of the front and lots of troops, tanks and artillery ready to use.  Here is a close-up on 185's big attack:

[MengJiao]

Hmmm.....

9:30pm or so.  Armor on both sides has taken around 15-25% loses.  27Bde has lost 4 steps out of 24 and 21PZ has lost 6 steps out of 22.  21 Pz has also repaired its tanks  and regained about the same number.  Without tank repair 21PZ would be at 50% of its armor at this point.
The last airborne troops have landed and everybody but the 3rd Div is digging in for the night.  3rd Div has 4 more chits to pull, but probably won't knock any more holes in 21Pz's line.

  Historically, the glider landings at this hour were one of the reasons 21 PZ pulled its most advanced troops back from the coast somewhere on the western side of all this.  Also, historically, the 3rd div was a probably bit closer to Caen at this hour since they assaulted the area that shows up here as Bocage! before this time.

  The Germans are getting a fair amount of new troops overnight and all day on the 7th while the invaders will be getting some artillery and some airborne troops on the beach.