Reply To: Continued Explorations of Normandy Wargaming

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Thanks, @jamesevans140 !

Yeah, the game was great, run on Saturday, June 8.  The videos are obviously only the highlights (no way in hell I was recording / rendering / editing 9.5 hours of video). We slightly delayed the battle reports and videos and didn’t stream it live … I didn’t want to “collide” with the OTT boot camp in any way.

This game, plus another epic game vs. @brucelea earlier on the Eastern Front has got me fully back into my old favorite, PanzerBlitz / Leader / Arab-Israeli Wars system.

What I’m building now is a monster game of Panzer Leader for the American landings at Omaha.  That might just be a fun table to build, maybe run a few turns solitaire, I wouldn’t inflict that beast on any of my players (the map is just short of 6 miles / 10 kilometers wide, includes Dog, Easy, and Fox assault sectors, and both US 1st and 29th Infantry Divisions).

Interesting notes about how you would game Overlord and Neptune differently.

In Panzer Leader, amphibious operations address a lot of the points you bring up.

The average board is three miles across, so big enough to handle beaches like Utah, Gold, Juno, and Sword, or half of Omaha (opening brigades / Regimental Combat Teams of ONE division).

The German player has to set up his field fortifications.  That’s all.  Not his units.  This is the information Allied commanders have, basically overflights of recon planes.

The Allied player must then stage all his waves in the sea hexes.  Counters are <b>inverted </b>in the hex so the German player can’t see what they are, with the exception of DD tanks.  The map is drawn in such a way so when the Allied player puts down his counters, all waves are set up, with their intended landing hexes.

Changes are not allowed once this is set up.

Once all Allied landing units are deployed (again, face down), the German player sets up his actual infantry and artillery and support units.

On each turn, Allied units in that turn’s wave hit the beach.

German opportunity fire … mortars and antitank guns can hit Higgins Boats (LCVPs).  The German player can see where the boats are (inverted counters) but doesn’t know what’s in each boat (so no cheesy “cherry picking” the most valuable units).

Then, roll for drift.  See where each unit really lands.  Don’t hit blocks or mines, or that’s the end of that unit.  Assaults get insanely disorganized right off the bat.

Hexes that wind up overstacked can be eliminated.

Allied units come onto the shore.  Any German units that haven’t fired can now do so (MG 42s here …)

Next turn, rinse repeat.  It gets insanely bloody when units are hit on beach landing hexes, causing wreck counters (more stacking problems) or “Dispersed” (pinned down) causing, you guessed it, more stacking problems.  This is where your beachmasters starts screaming at people, and what you say comes true … you have to get your people off the beach!

British beaches are actually pretty smooth, though … because not only do they have “funnies” which really make a difference, but also the distance from which they launched their DD Shermans in the water.  British tanks (like two squadrons of the Sherwood Rangers in our Jig/Gold Beach game) usually come on the beach pretty much intact, then engage German infantry and fortifications pretty well because they carry dual purpose guns, HE-FRAG ammo, and by default are already at very close range.

At Omaha, almost all the tanks sank because they were deployed too far out.  So those infantry of 116th and 16th RCTs are completely exposed beneath German “weiderstandnester” fortifications, as anyone who’s seen Saving Private Ryan can guess.