"Naval Order of Battle for D-Day landings?" Topic

Is there an online source for which ships were supporting the landings? I can find which BBs were there (from Wiki: "The Western Task Force included the battleships Arkansas, Nevada, and Texas, plus eight cruisers, 28 destroyers, and one monitor. The Eastern Task Force included the battleships HMS Ramillies and Warspite and the monitor HMS Roberts, 12 cruisers, and 37 destroyers."), but I want to know about cruisers and destroyers (and maybe the monitor).

Even a simple class breakdown would work for the DDs, I'm planning on buying a few 1/1200 or 1/2400 scale DDs for visual effect of the ships getting dangerously close in to blast bunkers with direct fire. I may go for 1/2400 or 1/3000 scale cruisers (which would be within 2000 yards of the shore by visual scale), but I suspect that the battleships were much farther out to allow for plunging fire onto the defenses.

Again, I'm looking for online sources first, print stuff I can get at the library, I hope.

This
link

is taken from here
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specifically pg317/318

If you're dedicated, you can piece together a lot of the destroyer info by clicking on individual links here
link

This might be of some use to you
link

Nafziger has a listing as well

I wonder how many LCT(R) involved. Flames of War makes no option for them

"but I suspect that the battleships were much farther out to allow for plunging fire onto the defenses."

My Wife's grandfather was on the Battleship USS Texas. She closed to a bit within 3000 yards of the water edge at Omaha beach. They fired the main guns direct fire at near horizontal elevation at the western beach exit near Vierville with the idea of clearing a path off the beach. The secondary armament went to work on a number sniper and machine gun pits around Vierville. At one point she even engaged an anti-aircraft battery and was attacked by German aircraft. The following day she sent boats to resupply the rangers at Pont de Hoc and took on a number of German prisoners from that location.

Wow, I would not have expected a battlewagon to be that close! The channel is pretty shallow water…

Let's see here… 1/4800 would be about right for the proper perspective from the beach. Now to find some models!

I wonder how many LCT(R) involved. Flames of War makes no option for them

Battlegroup Overlord does!

Thanks a lot, everyone!

How does it do it? What scale is Battlegroup?

Battlegroup Overlord can be played from platoon per side up to battalion per side, the unit of maneuver is the squad or individual vehicle.

Piers and Warwick (the writers) mostly play Battlegroup in 20mm, I play in 15mm because I have Flames of War forces and 15mm terrain. Ground scale for either is roughly 10"=100yd/m

The Battlegroup army building system requires you to take an HQ unit and a certain minimum number of infantry squads or platoons (there is also a maximum number of infantry platoons in the larger games). You select forces from the 'Forward Headquarters,' 'Infantry,' 'Tank Units,' and 'Artillery Units' groups.

Each group then allows you to take different support choices.

Each Forward HQ unit (includes more than just the HQ, there's also comms and such) allows you to take one support choice from either Logistics Support or Additional Fire Support.

Each Infantry squad allows you to take one support unit from Reconnaissance, Engineers, or Specialist units, and taking a whole platoon allows you to take 4-6 (limited by the specific army list) units instead of just one.

Each Tank unit allows you to take one support unit from Reconnaissance, Engineers, Logistics, or Specialist units, and taking a tank platoon allows you to take 3 support choices instead of just one.

Each Artillery unit allows you to take a support unit from Additional Fire Support. (Artillery is things like Priests or M2A1 105mm guns, off-table light cruisers or destroyers, or Shore Fire Control Parties or AOPs).

You can only take defenses if you are the defender in an Attack/defense mission, and the bunkers, etc do NOT grant you access to any support units.

Reconnaissance support units are infantry squad patrols, or jeeps/armored cars, and snipers (but aren't available to the Amphibious Assault lists).

Logistics Support units are things like a supply column or medics/stretcher parties.

Engineer Support units are things like combat engineers, armored bulldozers, recovery vehicles, etc.

Specialist Support units for the Amphibious Assault lists are Support boat teams (officer, rifle squad, Mortar team, MG team, demolition team), additional landing craft, or the fire support landing craft. In both the US and British Amphibious Assault Battlegroup army lists, Landing Craft Gun, Landing Craft Rocket, and Landing Craft Flak are Specialist Support units, and you can only take one of each.

The Additional Fire Support units are things like high-priority fire requests, registered target points, timed barrages in various calibers (6" to 14"), off-table artillery in various calibers (3.5" to 14"), timed air strikes, and close air support.

The LCRs have a nasty rule called "Drenching Fire", which allows them to roll a Heavy HE Area Fire attack (very likely to pin, 1-in-6 chance to cause casualties) against everything within 30" of the center of the beach. It also has a 1-in-6 chance of removing barbed wire sections and minefields.

I really prefer the Battlegroup rules over Flames of War, the additional comms/whatever units and the way the army list works is much better.