Background
Operation Lüttich was a codename given to a German counter-attack during the Battle of Normandy, which took place around the American positions near Mortain in northwestern France from 7 August to 13 August 1944. (Lüttich is the German name for the city of Liège in Belgium, where the Germans had won a victory in the early days of August 1914 during World War I.) The offensive is also referred to in American and British histories of the Battle of Normandy as the Mortain counterattack .
The assault was ordered by Adolf Hitler, to eliminate the gains made by the First United States Army during Operation Cobra and the subsequent weeks, and by reaching the coast in the region of Avranches at the base of the Cotentin peninsula, cut off the units of the Third United States Army which had advanced into Brittany.
The main German striking force was the XLVII Panzer Corps, with one and a half SS Panzer Divisions and two Heer Panzer Divisions. Although they made initial gains against the defending U.S. VII Corps, they were soon halted and the Allies inflicted severe losses on the attacking troops, eventually destroying most of the German tanks involved in the attack.[1] Although fighting continued around Mortain for six days, the American forces had regained the initiative within a day of the opening of the German attack.
As the German commanders on the spot had warned Hitler in vain, there was little chance of the attack succeeding, and the concentration of their armoured reserves at the western end of the front in Normandy soon led to disaster, as they were outflanked to their south and the front to their east collapsed, resulting in many of the German troops in Normandy being trapped in the Falaise Pocket.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_L%C3%BCttich
The Game
The game was a based on the Battle for the town of Mortain and was a stylized version of the actual fight. The board was laid out to be five foot deep and seven foot wide. The town of Mortain was in the German rear. Four objectives were placed on the board. Two were on the central hill and the other on each flank of the town. The allies would win if they captured two objectives. The Germans would win if they held all the objectives, with one objective loss being a tie. The game was 12 turns long.
Germans: Each player was allowed to build a 100 point panzergranadier and/or panzer force. An extra 50 point panzer grenadier force was also provided to the Germans. The Germans could deploy 12″ from the edge.
US: Each player was allowed to build a 100 point infantry force. Each US player could hold one unit in ambush and were free to deploy their forces anywhere on the table. 60% of the forces started on board with the rest coming in as standard reserves.
The German plan was to work their way through the wooded hill and capture the two objectives before the US could reinforce the positions. The US plan was to hold on at all costs!
The game began with the Germans following their plan and attacking with vigor. The US held on by their finger nails and launched assaults with their forward units to retake terrain. These assaults were costly to both sides, but stalled the German attacks long enough for US reserves to arrive and stabilize the front. With the initiative lost, the Germans redirected their forces to the flanks, in the hopes of taking the rear objectives. However, the US players were able to jocky their reserves into the right places to thwart these plans. With time running out, the Germans decided to send all their forces into a frontal attack in the woods, with the panzers leading the way. The final rush was defeated in detail by the US infantry, throwing back all the German assaults. The game ended in a historical US victory!
- Manteuffel