D Day Campaign - Day 1; Beach assaults and Orne River II

This week the US and British forces began their attacks on Utah and Sword beaches. The British made a second attempt to capture the Orne River bridge with scattered Para units joining the fight.

Orne River II

The British began this game in possession of the river bridge but needing to capture the canal bridge to secure the whole map square. They had a parachute battalion and some scattered units who would arrive randomly through the game.  

 

Pegasus bridge

The Para's attacked across the bridge, using smoke to cover the attack. They launched several assaults into the bridge defenders but were unable to break through them.  

 

The scattered reinforcements sadly all arrived on the British side of the table and so were unable to outflank the Germans position and exert pressure on them. After a fierce fight the Germans remained in control of the canal bridge with the Brits forced back behind the river again.    

Sword Beach

The British attackers were well supported by a range of "funnies" and beach assault armour. 

Sword beach Queen

Their first couple of waves stormed ashore but suffered casualties in their vital armour, making initial progress slower than they would have liked. Luckily for them the German reinforcements were slow to appear.   

After a significant struggle the British cleared the beach and managed to get some armour in and push towards the beach exits. The game did not go the full 16 turns but was declared a British win as they had made enough progress to likely secure the win had we fought on next week. 

Utah Beach

The US forces lined-up with plentiful infantry and a swarm of DD tanks who might tip the balance if enough made it to shore safely. 

 

Utah beach Uncle

It was mixed fortunes for the US in the first few turns - 5 of the 7 DD's made it ashore but the 1st wave infantry ran into murderous fire and became a bit bogged-down behind the sea wall.  

The arrival of some engineers with the 2nd wave, and some accurate artillery fire, took out the majority of the German infantry in their largest strong point. Shortly afterwards the Americans also managed to clear the second of the German strong points.  

About 10 turns in the US had cleared the beach and front line defences so pushed in land with Rangers and DD's to the fore. By turn 14 they had captured both beach exits and a US victory was declared.    

  

So after 2 moves the Allies were off both beaches but had failed to take the Orne river, allowing 21st Panzer to counter attack the airborne forces.