D-Day

The other weekend saw myself, Philip and Ru descend on Desmondo’s shed o’war to take part in another of his magnificent D-Day games (which have been documented here before). Once again I would be taking the part of ze Germans mainly as I had a very heavy night the night before so had hardly any sleep plus a quite substantial hangover so needed to reduce decision making as much as possible!

In a nice change from previous attempts at this scenario Des had increased the run in for the assault wave which helped Ru get to grips with the rules for the game and also increased the chances of things going wrong a bit too. After each landing craft or DD tank is moved we check to see if they ‘drift’ left or right and if they hit another vessel then things can go bang or head downwards quite rapidly and there’s also the added joy for the DD crews that they might get swamped. These fun and games did lead to Ru losing his Company HQs although nearly all of the DD tanks made it to the shallows and now I was hoping for the chances of the incoming vessels striking mines working in my favour to further write down the attackers. This didn’t go so well with only two boats hitting a mine which caused heavy casualties to one of Ru’s platoons although Philip’s lads fared a lot better, just being badly shocked. It was going to be a tough fight for the defenders.

Once on the beach I could start to engage the invading forces but unfortunately for me the two AT guns I had off table positioned to fire down the beach both had very, very low amounts of available shots (I rolled for this before we started and had 1 shot in 1 gun and 2 in the other!) so I had to choose the right moment to use them and also hope that when those moments did come up I had the dice available to activate the guns. Luckily for me they did and although one of my 3 shots missed the other 2 both brewed up vehicles (Ru’s Fascine carrying AVRE and Philip’s Sherman Crab) as they reached to bottom of the ramps of the LCT’s blocking the way for the following vehicles to exit. This would force the craft to back up and land again which would not only slow things down for the Brits a tad but also would mean that they might strike a mine whilst doing so, which unfortunately for me didn’t happen.

So, the majority of the assault troops were now ashore and so was a fairly sizable amount of supporting armour and various Funnies all intent on giving me a very hard time. My MG nests, infantry and mortars were doing their bit now too as was the one artillery strike I managed to call in but I couldn’t prevent Philip’s infantry from making it to the sea wall in front of my position even though they were caught in a particularly harsh bout of firing from my lads (a double phase was involved) and suffered quite a few casualties. Ru’s command was heading over to the right away from the defensive nest and hence suffered less casualties, all his tanks being safe as the AT gun facing that direction was about as accurate as a fairground air rifle! Pretty soon the Brits started knocking out the AT bunkers by concentrated fire from DD Shermans and AVRE’s chucking their dustbins of doom at me and the writing was pretty much on the wall from then on.

Ru was the first one to get off the beach with his Shermans and Infantry taking advantage of the AVLB bridge and then proceeding to blow chunks out of the right hand side of the post whittling down the defending infantry in short order before then starting to advance his infantry further inland. Phil had his bridge up against the seawall shortly afterwards and tried a rush with an infantry platoon first which I managed to repulse whilst he dropped a fascine on the left of my position which enabled a DD and a bulldozer to exit the beach. I managed to knock out the bulldozer by a lucky shot on the driver. It was about now when the second wave consisting of another Infantry company plus armour was heading into the beach and Philip took command uttering the famous phrase “Don’t worry I know what I’m doing” and then promptly colliding two of his boats together sinking one! I then added injury to the many insults we were all chucking his way by hitting another boat carrying his Company HQ in with a mortar stonk, killing the CO. Meanwhile on the beach, he was having a better time and decided to stop fannying about and launched an AVRE up his bridge which proceeded to literally crush the resistance of the infantry at the front of my position whilst also shrugging off an attempt to knock it out from my remaining AT gun. When he managed to take out this final surviving AT asset with his infantry pouring up the bridge behind now unopposed, with Ru’s Shermans behind my position and the second wave landing I decided the gig was up and I chucked in the towel.

Once again it was a bloody marvellous day’s wargaming all carried in the greatest of sprits and I’d like to thank Des for hosting us and Ru & Philip for being such great opponents, what the hobby is all about.

A fortnight ago I finally managed to get the first game of the year in round at Des’ magnificent shed o’war, and it was a cracking way to hopefully start up face-to-face wargaming again. We would be having another crack at a D-Day game (rude not to really as it was near enough the anniversary!) using Des’ lovely 15mm collection of figures & terrain and our mash-up rules that combine IABSM with the dice activation of CoC which we have, in true Lardy style, entitled “I aint been Coc’d yet Mum” or IABCYM.

In this scenario myself and Andy T. would be assaulting the strongpoint known as ‘COD’ to the allied planners with orders to neutralise it then move forward to clear the exits from the beach to allow the follow on forces to barrel off down the roads to points inland, Des would take control of the dastardly defenders and try to prevent us from doing so. To achieve this task we were given identical forces which were based upon A & B Coys, 2/East Yorks with each of us taking command of a company assault group, both consisting of:

Wave one
- 2 platoons infantry in LCI
- 1 assault section RE, for beach obstacle demolition
- Troop, 13\18 Hussars (4 x DD Shermans)

Wave two
- LCT with 22nd Dragoon’s and 79th Assault RE. 1x Flail, bulldozer, AVRE bridgelayer, AVRE facine.

Wave three
- 3rd platoon and HQ section of each company.
- 2 x Vickers HMG sections
- Mortar platoon in Bren carriers
- 6pdr AT troop with Bren carrier tows.

The defensive nest (Wn20, ‘COD’) that we had to take on consisted of 1.Komp/736 Inf Regt/716 Division manning the following defences:

1hmg
2 lmg in tobruks
2x 50mm mortar in tobruks
2 ob posts
1 hq
2x 37mm ATG open positions facing the rear area
1x 37mm ATG in the 180 degree bunker
2 x 50mm ATG in 90 degree bunker
Trenches, wire.

Further back and to the rear of the main defence nest were these additional positions:

Beach house 1 complex
- 37mm tobruk
- HMG bunker
Beach house 2 complex
- 37mm open top bunker
- Two sections in trenches
- 1 lmg in tobruk.
Rear command bunker
- lmg tobruk

Our plan was quite simple: hit the beach and Andy’s right hand platoon and my left hand platoon would concentrate on the defensive position whilst the other ones tackle the flanking positions. The DD tanks and ‘Funnies’ would support this effort depending on if they make the beach or not with reserve platoons to be fed in where needed. One of the great things about these D-Day games is the absolute uncertainty in just how much of your force either 1. manages to just arrive on the beach and 2. makes it up the beach to get to grips with the defenders. So with everything ready we launched our attack.

For once the run in to the beach went (ahem) swimmingly for both of us with none of the DD tanks being lost to swamping or crashing into each other (you have to roll each time you move in the ‘deep’ parts to check for swamping and there’s a chance that you can drift too). However upon hitting the beach 3 of my DD tanks promptly hit mines which unbelievably they all managed to survive my LCI’s also made it past the submerged obstacles safely and all my lads managed to exit them without serious losses from enemy fire too. Over on the left Andy had slightly less luck losing one DD tank to a mine and one to AT gun fire and one of his LCI’s also went up which caused serious casualties on his left hand platoon, killing the CO and reducing the unit to little more than an overstrength section. The defending Germans then started up a hail of fire which again I seemed to dodge the worst of whilst Andy’s already battered platoon suffered even more. Notwithstanding this we both pushed our troops up the beach as quickly as possible supported by the fire from the now defrocked DD tanks from the surf whilst our assault pioneers started to clear obstacles.

Pretty soon the assault troops had passed the obstacles but now had to cross the mined area of the beach. It was here that my right hand platoon’s luck ran out somewhat taking the worst casualties yet from mines, however the left hand platoon heading for the bunker complex carried on with their run of good luck and made it to the wire completely unscathed by the mines. Unfortunately for Andy’s left hand platoon they seemed to be absorbing all the bad luck from my lads and by the time they hit the sea wall they had lost so many men that they were broken and completely combat ineffective although his right hand platoon managed to make the wire without too many more casualties from mines.

The next phase of the battle saw our central platoons successfully cross the wire and start to clear the bunker complex, again with the great help from the DD tanks back at the shore, and soon were nearly through the position. My right hand platoon tried to assault the FT turret Tobruk which lay to their front without success but I started to take it under fire from the DD tanks and as the ‘Funnies’ were now inbound I reckoned we’d be able to by sort it out pretty soon. Unfortunately time was getting on at this point and so we called the game but it was clear that ‘COD’ had fallen and the reserve platoons would be used to push through to help clear the exits whilst the DD tanks could have shot up the positions in the beach houses with impunity until the defenders broke. I think that the Germans suffered from some bad luck with their activation dice and had problems stemming from the initial bombardment and us getting a lucky hit on the CO which all helped hamper the defence and our great luck in managing to get nearly all the DD tanks ashore safely helped out immeasurably.

I am looking forward to is the next time we play it in an all-dayer as Des’ plan is to have a further table set up with the area behind the beach so we play through to that table after the defences have been cleared. Having said that these games are so brilliantly unpredictable I bet we get stuck on the beach as all the DD tanks drown and we get slaughtered by mines! Anyway, whatever happens it’ll be ace.

It was a cracking game, just look at the table and toys we got to play with what’s not to like there!, and a fantastic way to get going again. Massive thanks to Mr Darkin for allowing us round to play and to Andy for always being a great bloke to have at the table (and thankfully on my side for once!), I’m a very lucky chap to have wargaming mates like these! Onwards and upwards now, here’s to more games in the near future.

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COD, Sword beach, 1944. Where Company Commanders get their chips. 15mm, IABCM

Battering Cod, Sword Beach, 6th June 1944. 15mm IABCYM.