AAR: Utah Beach Revisited

Hi folks,

Work on the last 5 British Armoured Cars continues. In the mean time I thought I'd share a few pictures of a Zoom game I participated in on 6 June. 

Dave was kind enough to take some action shots with my LCA's which had been loaned for the occasion. 

This zoom game was hosted by Dave, as a small replacement for the much larger game we had planned to do last weekend. Myself and Martin were controlling the landing troops, with orders to clear the beach. 

Dave had beefed up the defences slightly, and we applied a few modifications to the standard FoW rules. For a start, troops on the beach only had 4+ saves (instead of 3+), and weapons could fire onto the whole beach (suffering a -1 to hit if they were outside max range). We also had Engineers, Bulldozers and Dozer Shermans. 

Dave had set up his table (a 4' by 8') with a high bluff at the rear, sea wall and beach obstacles. Me and Martin rolled dice for preliminary air and naval bombardment. 

I decided to take the right hand landings, while Martin handled the left. 

Some of the things that need to be done is a roll to see if your landing craft make it to the beach or are delayed. Only one of my two assault platoons hit the beach - landing in front of untouched defences. The first wave took a hammering (as can be seen by the black skull tokens, used to record casualties). 

Two out of five Sherman DD's made it ashore, the rest being sunk in the surf. One of those that made the beach didn't last long as an 88mm round gutted it. My infantry actually fell back into the surf seeking cover. Pinned and unable to advance, things looked a bit grim. 

Thankfully reserves were on the way!

One of the things about this type of game is that generally speaking, the assault troops are going to win through. Cost and time become the main factors. Another assault platoon, Engineers and armour make it ashore. The obstacles prevent vehicles moving further up the beach till they are gapped. 

Martin at this point was doing much better than me, having had some of the defences to his front knocked out or pinned by the preliminary bombardment. 

As with our larger D-Day games, you quickly realise that the allies were at the forefront of a conveyor belt of troops that would just keep coming. Slowly my assault got moving, as tank fire started to smoke or blast German defences. The amount of incoming fire started to thin. 

Engineers and Dozer get to the obstacles and start clearing them (skill check if starting the turn in contact). More troops arrive while my initial (very sparse) platoon makes it to the sea wall. this platoon did have a medic stand with it (a house rule) that allowed it to create a rifle team on a skill check when 2 teams had been lost from the platoon... as the medics patch up the walking wounded and get them back into the fight. 

Dozer tanks get bogged down in the sand and picked off by the defenders...

Too little, too late - as the LCT's start arriving. 

With my infantry at the sea wall, and Martin's over it and amongst the defenders, the newly landed tanks move up awaiting gaps being cleared and pouring fire into the defenders. Some of the bunkers are in flamethrower range of the infantry, and are soon dealt with. The game ends as most of the defenders are killed or driven off. 

But the assault was costly - we lost roughly a company on this one section, attacking with a battalion of regular US troops. 

We do have some idea's as to what else we could do to better represent the landings and the fighting. Hopefully we'll be able to put these into effect soon!

Cheers to Dave for hosting and for letting me use some of his pics!