Background
The American airborne landings in Normandy were the first American combat operations during Operation Overlord, the invasion of Normandy by the Western Allies on June 6, 1944, during World War II. Around 13,100 American paratroopers of the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions made night parachute drops early on D-Day, June 6, followed by 3,937 glider troops flown in by day. As the opening maneuver of Operation Neptune (the assault operation for Overlord) the two American airborne divisions were delivered to the continent in two parachute and six glider missions.
Both divisions were part of the U.S. VII Corps and provided it support in its mission of capturing Cherbourg as soon as possible to provide the Allies with a port of supply. The specific missions of the two airborne divisions were to block approaches into the vicinity of the amphibious landing at Utah Beach, to capture causeway exits off the beaches, and to establish crossings over the Douve River at Carentan to assist the U.S. V Corps in merging the two American beachheads.
The assault did not succeed in blocking the approaches to Utah for three days. Numerous factors played a part, most of which dealt with excessive scattering of the drops. Despite this, German forces were unable to exploit the chaos. Many German units made a tenacious defense of their strong-points, but all were systematically defeated within the week.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_airborne_landings_in_Normandy
The Game
Continuing the D-Day theme for the month, we went with the new air assault scenario in the D-Day American book. This would give us a chance to try out the new airborne and glider rules. We wanted to make sure the game was big enough for a decent number of players, as we were expecting a full house. We decided we wanted to keep with the sizing of the scenario as designed, to try things out as intended, before we mucked it all up! The simple solution was to just lay out two tables and connect them on one end, with each having their own forces. This would ensure the game had the larger group gaming feel we like, but not mess with the base scenario. In order to try out the rules fully, we decided that one side would be attacked with a para drop and the other a glider assault. Using the set up and points in the scenario, each side could pick their forces from the ones allowed. We were off!
Both German forces chose veteran infantry companies with some armored support. They deployed their available forces on the table to hold the two objectives and had their reserves set for later arrival.
The US players planned their landings and targeted an objective each. We followed the new landing rules and the remaining landing forces deployed. I say remaining, as a large portion of each force ended up landing off the table and had to enter as reserves! Others either crashed landed their gliders or ended up in bad terrain. Things were not starting well…
As the US forces stated to march on their objectives, the Germans consolidated their positions to face the threats, while awaiting their reserves. The US forces moved forward cautiously, with their thinned out numbers and quickly realized that they had chosen the wrong objectives, as each turned out to be the strongest point in the German defenses. All initial attacks were thwarted, with the Americans taking the brunt of the casualties.
All seemed bleak, but the dice gods intervened. The off board forces began to arrive. However, they all managed to come on closer to the more exposed German objectives! The Americans jumped at the opportunity to try to salvage the attack. While this was going on, the German mobile reserves also arrived. It was going to be a race. In the end, the Americans cleared the exposed objectives first and held on, as the Germans tried to counter attack in vein. The game ended with both side being in the possession of the US forces and an American victory!
The game went well. We were all happy with the new landing rules. They are easier and still give a good result. Definitely an improvement. The scenario also has random entry (very random). This pretty much guarantees that every game will be unique, meaning it is infinitely re-playable. I highly recommend you give the new scenarios a try!
- Manteuffel