"30 Seconds to Dog-One - GMG Omaha Test Game" Topic

Last night we tried out the boards for the first time (minus the extra sea tiles and alot of other bits, but we have a playable game). We used the 'Atlantic Wall Defence' and 'US Amphibious Assault' lists from the new Normandy book for 'Battlegroup', with 900 points aside.

The US had the tough task of taking the Vierville Draw off the Germans, with three objectives being placed. One was on the road below the bluffs, another was WN-72 and the third objective was the dual MG bunker at the top of the draw. A tough assignment. The German forces placed first and little could be seen as virtually all their troops were hidden away in bunkers. The US forces have to come on in three consecutive waves, one after the other. First though the US rolled to see the sea conditions, and with a throw of '6', they got a 'millpond' result, something that would later prove critical.

The first wave ashore consisted of two, of the three, infantry boat teams coming ashore on the far left of the US flank with an Armoured Bulldozer helping out. The US landing craft hit the beach and the men stormed ashore, the demo teams heading fo the first line of hedgehogs to lay charges to clear gaps, while the rest of the infantry rushed ashore. The bulldozer lumbered through the water and cleared a path through the hedgehogs. In response, German defenders rushed to their positions and three Tobruk pits opened up (for the first two turns the German force only get a single unmodified d6 for commands). The mass of fire (with each Tobruk having a 'Loader Team!) pinned down one rifle squad, cut down several men in two others, and in what looked to be a disasterous start, shot down one of the Shore Artillery OP teams. Luckily a nearby medic rushed to their aid and one of them was saved.

Wave two hit the beach at the opposite end of the US line, coming ashore directly infront of the WN72 complex. A single boat team landed, along with a DD-tank and the US beach commander and his communications team. They got ashore without loss and were luckily out of the line of fire for now. At the other end of the beach, the Demo Teams charges blew and a large section of the hedgehogs were now cleared, so they ran onto to deal with the second line as the US infantry tried to keep going towards the sea wall. US 4.7" gunfire proved ineffective against the German defences, but a pre-planned barrage of 14" naval shells proved of more use! Sadly the German response was yet more MG fire and more soldiers dropped down as the US sprinted for the sea wall.

Next Wave three came in, consisting of two DD-Tanks. One floundered in the sea but managed to get ashore (thanks to a re-roll granted by the 'Millpond' sea conditions. They headed for the gaps in the obstacles as the remaining US infantry blew the German wire with a banagalore and surged to the wall. Opposite WN72, the US advanced into the obstacles and made their way forward. The Gap Team starting to wire up the hedgehogs to allow the DD Tank through. This time though the US felt the full impact of the German defenders. On the left MG fire and mortar fired cut down men all over the area, with both flamethrower teams and both artillery observers also becoming casualties. Opposite WN72 the US found themselves on a German Registered Target Point and some artillery came in on top of them! But the US reactions was the opposite of the left flank (thanks to three 'Beyond the Call of Duty tests) and the US jumped up and ran to the wall of WN72. This surprised the German defenders and they now lacked anything to target, though the US Gap team were cut down before they could blow the obstacles, which left the DD tank stranded.

Now the battle for the beach reached its close action phase. With US troops scrambling up the sea wall and onto the road, they sheltered in the blindspot of the Tobruk MGs. Their supporting DD tanks came forward, trading shots with the 88mm or giving covering fire to the infantry with their MGs. But at WN-72, a lone flamethrower team, under cover of the DD tanks MGs, leapt round and flamethrowered the embrasure of one of the AT gun bunkers killing all the occupants and allowing one of the rifle teams to get inside. In response the Germans had some infantry in the trench outside but they failed to get back in and were then caught as more US troops advanced and shot them down in the trench line. On the left flank though the German MGs did muderous work, finishing off the stragglers still on the beach.

The DD tanks on the left flank finally reached the road, and a slow advance began with the tanks moving up the road and sheltering the survivors from the first wave. At the other end, the US troops now stormed the 88mm bunker and after a long drawn out fight, got inside to leave no survivors. German troops rushed to try and shore up their falling flank, but had to leave their defences to do so and were hit by salvo's of 4.7" shells, and without their defences suffered heavy loss. The US and Germans threw all they had to try and push the draw, and the DD-tanks got past the roadblock and brought the MG bunkers under fire. As they did so, yet more naval gun salvos came in and killed the rest of the Germans trying to reinforce their crumbling flank. With these losses the Germans finally broke, but the US had suffered massive casualties and were themselves only a single point from breaking!

It was a great game, very exciting and played really well. Was a very tense affair, with lots of heroes made and lost… Cracker of a game on such stunning terrain.

Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That is stunning!

Almost too nice to play on. What manufacturer are the figures?

Mainly Britannia for the US (with a few from the OOP 'Omaha' range from Battlefield Miniatures) and a mix of AB and Battlefield for the Germans.

I'm giving this movie *****, wait you say it wasn't a movie?
You could have fooled me

Wow! nice table also sounds like a fun game

Great write up and photos of the action. You have all done a fabulous job on the terrain and figures.

That's great! Richard

Beautiful table and figures and very nicely photographed! Love the armoured bulldozer.

Lovely… absolutely lovely!

Once wanted to do that in 28mm until I read what a bloodbath it had been IRL!

Holy cow!!!

The US had 4.7" guns on their DD's?

Er… No… On boats.

This is very pretty, however it is not all that historically realistic. In theory and in practice the initial waves, demo teams and DD tanks were choreographed to a pretty specific model of operations, and as you don't seem to have the correct boat team mixes it throws it all off. Of course there were no armored bulldozers on the beach that morning, but were bulldozer Sherman's that could target the emplacements (and draw fire) while the boat teams worked to take them out.

As for terrain, the beach obstacles are all wrong, and of course the two element C's on the exit is just plain incorrect as it was two cement walls and rather well documented on how it was taken out.

Don't get me wrong, clearly a lot of work has gone into this and it is great eye candy, but there's the whole question of if you're not going to do it as historically correct as possible why not just assault the beach with Space Marines.

Jon – when did the first Sherman Dozers come ashore?

I agree with jgawne that it's not terribly accurate but I can understand that that is not the point and it's a superd and inspiring set up/demo game.

All wargaming is fantasy anyway when you think about it.

If they wanted to make this 'accurate' they'd need a lot more bodies and men playing dead lying in the water because any attempt to get out was certain death.

I know most DD tanks were launched too early and were swamped – but I think one or two made it to shore.

One thing to remember about Omaha is it didn't need to be so bad. Had the US accepted to use the numerous British funnies and not messed up the DD launch then it would still have been a tough fight but not the disaster it was.

Anyway – great models and terrain and don't let my nitpicking bother you – it is not intended to detract from an amazing effort.

Most of the "funnies" would have been little help on Omaha, the topography is much different from Sword and Gold beaches. Churchill crocodiles may have helped some, but that would adding a different, foreign vehicle into the supply and maintenance chain, retraining crews, swapping out radios – not as easy as it sounds. The US Army ordered M4 based "funnies" from British industries in February 1944, but the British and Canadian demand was so great, that it was impossible to meet the US order. 25 flail tanks and 100 Sherman flame throwers had been ordered ordered from the British didn't arrive until about a month after D-Day. Of the M4 Crocodiles, only four were ultimately delivered.

As to 'messing up the DD launch', 741st began launching 5500 yards out; Company B launched nearer the beach and two of its DDs made it all the way in. Three more DDs were landed directly on the beach by their LCT after the first tank sank, and the shrouds of the remaining tanks were damaged. The British on Sword beach launched 34 DD's from about 5000 yards out and three promptly swamped. Of the remaining 31, eight stalled in the surf when their engines were submerged when the shrouds came down. They were eventually swamped by the incoming tide.

10 LCTs landed their AVRE/funnies tanks directly on the beach. The tanks landed pretty much on time, just ahead of, or with the infantry.

Oh, my. While hard-fought, that sounds an awful lot less painful than the Flames of War version of hitting the beach. That mission is an exercise in masochism.

Looks like I will need to prod the FLGS into getting a copy of KGN.

Why bother indeed… Seeing as no wargame I have ever played is 'accurate' to a 100% degree, I had better give up and just play 40k. ;)

Just kidding… Cant ever go back to 40k! Too many skullz.

Maybe we play cos its fun?

Just a thought…

Oh and for your info, the correct concrete roadblock wasnt finished for the game at that point. Nor was our Sherman Dozer… The demo game bits are even now still underway. I was painting Landing Craft last night! Hence the above title of 'Test Game'. ;)

The game has taken one of our club members four years to get it to this stage, as the entire thing, from the bluffs, to the bunkers, to the beach obstacles are all scratchbuilt. None of it is commerically available.

The game was a chance to play a fun game, on nice terrain, to test the lists from the book. Obviously thats not to everyones cup of tea, and I suspect others have far more accurate terrain built than us, but we like it. It wasnt intended as a 100% accurate simulation (and Im not sure any game can ever be, but thats a personal view), its more a rendition of that infamous day on Omaha Beach. Maybe we just watched the first 15 minutes of Saving Private Ryan once too often… But with all wargames, sometimes history has to be fudged to allow things to either look 'right' or play right.

If you look at the position of the bunkers, you will note that several are out of alignment from their actual positions in real life, and several are far too close together. This was done purposely to allow them to fit on the table. Possibly far more henious a crime than not using the right roadblock! ;)

At the end of the day, my view is that terrain, and miniatures, should look right for their setting. I think its unlikely that anyone can ever offer a 100% accurate portrayal of such an event as this (or indeed of any historical battle perhaps) and all wargaming remains a fictional game based on historical events.

But thanks for your comments, you will be glad to see the correct roadblock will make an appearance!

Cheers,

Piers

Indeed. Very impressed by your efforts. Not a perfect simulation (which would anyway be impossible) but a very good game and that is what you're trying for.

People will nit-pick – self included. Don't mean to detract just comments really.

Honestly, I would consider the mis-aligned bunkers more critical than anything else (assuming that you mean not having bunkers covering each other properly).

The reserves issue completely broke the scenario in Flames (if you can't roll to get the LC in, you will lose, no matter how well you use what you have), but it seems like the sea conditions are … particularly significant to getting the reserves on in this scenario.

I'll still talk to the LGS, I would love to take a look at the game.

No… they still cover each other.

We compressed the trenches to fit the command and stores bunkers on so it looked pretty…

The MG bunkers occupy the correct positions (roughly) and have interlocking fields of fire.

Skarper, feel free to nit-pick mate. I have no issues with comments, critic and ideas. Some make me re-think things and thus look at improvements… and if I dont agree I just ignore them! Im bloody minded that way! ;)

We compressed the trenches to fit the command and stores bunkers on so it looked pretty…

Hey, it's a visual hobby! Pretty boards and well-painted models make the game more enjoyable.

I just need more 1/100 scale landing craft.

Marvelous-looking game! Very well done!

Any attempt to accurately game Omaha Beach is going to be difficult. Historically, none of the beach exits were taken from the beach side. They were all taken by troops who made it up the bluffs in the lightly defended areas between the beach exits. (In contrast to the slaughter near the exits, several US units made it ashore, through the mines, through the wire and up the bluffs without losing a man). So to game it accurately you can either have a game where the Americans can't win or a game where the Germans can't win :)

As always an absolutely incredible looking game… (…it is a game right?)…I almost have sympathy for those who might mistake it for a museum display…which is I presume why there is an objection to whatever inaccuracies there might be…but I understood it to be a game…

I'm not sure why anyone should expect such accuracy in the context of a game when considering what else on TMP is offered as WWII. The sudden demands for complete historical accuracy in a table top battle scene can only be seen as complimentary testimony to the masterful heights of the model itself…

Yup… Its just a game.

Never seen the point in making demos that aint games!

Pardon me for resurrecting an old thread here, but I'm putting together some terrain boards for the Omaha scenario in BG Overlord and turned to this page for inspiration!

While it's been widely accepted there were no bulldozers on the beach that day, I came across this from the 29th Division Historical Society site:
"Two platoons of "C" Company [121st Combat Engineers] landed on Easy Green beach from LCT's at 061030 B hours with bulldozers and about one ton of explosives each." link

Absolutely fantastic, inspiring looking game!

I posted the following details about the best website I have ever seen about Omaha Beach on another thread in these forums about Omaha, there is virtually everything you need for wargaming Omaha all on one website:-

link

If you search amongst the pages for the 121st and do a translation, there is a paragraph with the following:-

The battalion received its first major equipment when around 11:00, two sections of the ICCS / 121 landed on an LCT Dog White bulldozers each loaded 500kg of explosives.

There is also reference to bullozers on Easy Green and clearing the way. (but I cannot find it anymore)

If you keep searching amongst the landing timetables, you can almost find what landing craft was or may have been involved.

But don't ask me for what page it was on, finding it the second time is harder than the first time. tried posting a link, but it only makes a link to the index page. Use Google translate to do a translation.

More I read into the more complicated it gets as to where the dozers actually where but Vierville seems to definitly had them as there are some personal stories of them
Reading between the lines it appears the dozers which landed on Easy Green were directed to clear exit D1 which was Vierville

At the following site their is a picture of a wrecked dozer between the E1 and E3 exits:-

link

Amazing table & great AAR. Many thanks for sharing it with us.

Piers that game and table look simply stunning. Too bad some people took the time to actually criticize your layout?? Really people. It's a game get over it. And yes there were bulldozers used in the first day at pretty much all 5 beaches.

Oh man…to have a chance to play that game would be a dream come true. I love it!

Looks like Omaha beach to me….wouldn't wish to put words in your mouth Piers, but I do remember the response of a good friend of mine after similar criticism of a game he put on.

(Clue: he hangs out here sometimes and does it in 54mm)

Someone took umbrage because a PzrIII had the wrong road wheels (I kid you not), he simply said "yeah, your right….600 figures, 400 odd square feet of terrain, 150 vehicles, 2 years work… I just havent even tried, have I? When are you doing your game, then?"