"D-Day - how you have gamed it" Topic

Just as it says. What kind of games have you played? What level of rules have you used?
The airbourne landings can't fail to make a great wargame but what about the amphibious assault? Given that it would require a lot of extra models (landing craft, funnies, emplacements) is it worth it? I'd love to do it in some way but I'd want to do it well and possibly enjoy it too!

There is also the possibility of the post-beach gaming, where landed troops need to push inland to seize objective, relieve airbourne forces and so on.

Griefbringer

We did a section of juno Beach back about 5 years ago with 6mm troops and used Blitzkrieg Commander (1 stand is roughly a platoon). A few neat mechanics to address drift plus some opportunity for the defender to move through a tunnel system to represent the hassles of clearing out the town.

We abstracted away landing craft and instead did a quick die roll to determine if any craft were sunk or damaged on the way in and put the troops in the surf. all told a good game, IIRC.

Bob in Edmonton

I've done it in 15m with Cinematic FOW rules.

I hear they're WAY better than the Made For TV FOW rules.

We did a "typical" landing I am not going to do an exact terrain copy so it could not be called an exact scale. We had a German platoon on defence (which is about right) and rean from the shore line (closer than it should have been) with reduced numbers to get the feel of the period. Scale was 1" to 10m and rules Manoeouver Group.

Not really done a lot of actual D-Day (as in 6th June) apart from boardgames, computer games, tactical actions around the para drops, the 21st Panzer Dv counterattack and the assault on strongpoint Hillman.

The actual amphibious assault isn't terribly interesting as a tactical game, but I've done tons of tactical, grand tactical and operational games covering operations in June & July.

Dieppe is an interesting operation as it is so much less one sided (and yes, it can succeed!). Don't need many Funnies for it either….

we've done it (the landings, lodgement and breakout) twice at 1 stand = 1 platoon in 6mm, using our own rules.

First time we missed out utah beach, did a week on the lodgement and a week on the breakout… Brit airborne managed to take and hold Caen (but lost Carpiquet), Brit recce did a neat deal with US Armour to borrow some bridging kit.. RAF carpet bombed German paras and Green Howards

Second time we did all five beaches – (actually 6 as the brits had an option on the beach along from sword)… German plan was to hold the neck and let the allies expand into the bag, except they couldn't close the neck – they held Caen though… allied carpet bombing rather more accurate this time though, paved the way to Falaise with 500lbers…

RAF carpet bombed German paras and Green Howards

Ooops!

I ran Omaha using Command Decision with the landing rules from TRACTICS. Very nasty.

We did it as a grand club game back in 1973, with 1/72nd. All of Sword beach. The tables were 24 foot long and we had three of them 6 foot wide IIRC to extend landwards. Needed to keep them seperated so we could move troops.
About 20 guys took part. Did the whole beach landings and Glider landings and all, including the 21st panzer response.
Took three days. Lots of scratch built funnies and landing craft.
I forget the rules, can't remember what we were playing then. Might have been WRG as that seemed to be the club standard.
I did have some photos but damned if I remember where they are now.

I periodically run an Omaha Beach scenario for the assorted clubs. 116th Infantry on Dog Red. Stands are squads, homegrown rules, the nitty gritty of the first 3-4 hours on the beach. It's usually pretty popular, I've put it on about seven times.

I played D-day like this: link

20mm with home made rules.

Put on a Utah Beach game more than 10 years ago in 6mm, using Spearhead rules, and scaling down a bit (bn representing reg, co rep bn, etc). Even had some 1/300 destroyers representing off-shore support. I had to scratch-build a bunch of landing craft. It was kind of fun.

Rob

We played the Memoir 44 Overlord scenario last night.

FDR would have fired Ike for the outcome we had…

The Assault on Point du Hoc in 28mm (including the cliffs) scrimish. Rules were the face of Battle.

dhc-wargames.de/143.html?&L=1

Cheers,

Burkhard

Back in the 1970s I played in a couple of huge multi table games. When I say huge I'm understating.
6 enormous tables with 20 odd players and maybe 10 referees if just ridiculously big.

They were kind of fun but because I was the "kid" in the group I tended to get pretty small commands.
I thought they were brilliant at the time.
Looking back, I'm not so sure such huge multi tabled games with 20 players and 10 referees are worth the trouble.
Everything takes forever.

Anyhow, we used micro armour, card chits for infantry squads and WRG rules. If you're going to play a really big game I reckon you need quick and fairly simple rules.

Played Sword a few times…

Also done Pegasus Bridge… Funnily enough my club is just looking at building 'Omaha' next…

We use Rapid Fire for most games.

Yes, I was thinking of Rapid Fire too. I game it in 15mm, I've seen LCA and LCVPs but none of the others. I don't fancy scratch building LCTs.

We did it with a 16' x 16' L shaped table we took around to shows. It used to take so long to set up and dismantle we could never get to actually play anything at a 1 day show.
Megalomania to the nth degree I'm afraid – I wonder why we've stopped playing very much WW2 at the moment.

I did sector WN28 or Nan White which is a section of Juno beach. It took me almost a year to build the terrain. I did it in 20mm and used my own rules. It worked out very well. Almost historically accurate.

Did Sword Beach (Queen Red), at Salute a coupla years back, in 1/35 scale, with scratch-built LCTs, and Strongpoint Cod, plus the inland push to Caen, table was about 20ft square (ish)
cracking game, used Crossfire rules, had a great day, won a prize for something, (stupidity, probably!)

John

Here is how we did it, along with photos.

link

Texas, that looks really good. That's given me a bit of inspiration, thanks.

Here is how i did it as part of the SOGG big game 2007

This is my interpretation of Juno:
picture

Whoa. Stunning stuff Alcal.

SDD produced an LCT in 15mm – I've got three of them. SDD has long since been bought out by someone else however, so I've no idea if the LCT is still available.

Going to do it (again) in November.
1/285th, Platoon being the smallest unit, (very) Vaguely Spearhead derived rules
Just Sword and Juno sectors, + the British airborne Op.. with the start time being Midday on June 6th to avoid the tedium of the beach landings a D-Day game where the landings don't take place is a tad…pointless? (with the possible exception of (Omaha)
Therefore the game will be the drive for Caen with objectives set for the 3rd British inf +3rd canadian Inf Divs +supports. versus 716th and 711 divisions with 21st panzer in support.
about 5 or 6 players a side plus umpires.
This will be a 2 day game and the results will have a direct bearing on another game played the same long weekend which will be a Goodwood style operation.
Looking forwards to it.

Using FOW I ran 5 Normandy games at a convention. All were being played at the same time. There were about 33 players involved. The first game was Bloody Omaha, it had 3 US Infantry companys with plenty of support assaulting, the table size was 12x6. The second game was Sword Beach, with a British Infantry Battalion and plenty of support attacking, table size was 8 x 6. Then there was a Point Du Hoc game and two airborne games. One was US Paras defending St Mere Eglise, ate the other game was Brit Paras defending the approaches to the Orne River Bridges, both games on 12 x 6 tables.

A very useful book in putting together Normandy Games is the Normandy Rapid Fire Book…it gives a very good layout that can be followed. I used that in combination with the Flames Of War suppliment books to design my games. I just adjusted the games as necessary to accomidate the number of players I wanted to make the game for and the desired tropp strengths.