D-Day Part Two - Sword Beach

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Sword Beach - Someone appears to have removed the artillery from this German emplacement.

This game was played quite some time ago. You can read about the first game of three we played here.   Looking back at my records, we played it in February - which just goes to show how long its been taking me to get around to blogging. 

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But there are still enough troops inside to wreck the Allies day. 

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Sword Beach - the Germans ponder their options.  Beach landing scenarios can be difficult to turn into interesting games because the defender often doesn't have much to do other than hunker down and fire at the closest target.   A good game isn't impossible, but in this case it relied on the Germans having some artillery and some limited reserves. 

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Sword Beach

Now one of the advantages of playing Memoir '44 is that the scenarios are available and lots of folks have played them.  Consequently there are a lot of statistics available on the games as whole.  The British typically win this scenario 75% of the time, but with a far lower margin of victory than the shellacking that the Americans typically get at Omaha.  They win, but they don't win by a country mile. 

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The Allied players were a lot happier with this setup as the terrain wasn't as steep and actually getting off the beach wasn't so challenging. 

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Allied armour charges up the beach. 

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The landing craft are mainly set dressing - in that they don't have a game effect, but we used them to count victory medals.  Each time the Germans scored a point, we added some smoke to "blow up" a landing craft. 

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The British armour is trying for a breakthrough. 

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The British infantry slog it up the beach, forcing a lodgement in the centre, while the German pummel them with artillery. 

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A British commando appears behind the cafe and knifes a German sentry.  This marked an early lead for the British as they stormed up the beach. 

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The German commanders had some tricky decisions to make.  Should they try to contest the allied landing while it is still on the beach, but risk committing their small reserves too soon or should they try and draw them into the close country further up?

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German infantry occupy the town, counter attacking the advancing British commandos. 

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A desperate German counter-attack onto the beach can't save the rapidly collapsing German centre. 

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The Cafe  gets rather crowded as the last few defenders are driven from the beach.  A British victory put the Allies even going into the final game.  We used the 'Allo 'Allo figures as a means of counting victory medals.  Every time the Allies scored a medal, we added another character to the Cafe Rene.

It inspired Edith to give us a bit of a song.

After setting up the next table, we repaired to a local greasy spoon where several mixed grills were consumed.  I had the fish and chips and they were tip top.  Savage joined us briefly for grub, but he'd snorted some absinthe that didn't agree with him the night before and had to head relatively soonish.

Hopefully, I will get to the next post and the end of the campaign before too long, but I'm trying to discipline myself and update J&F at least once a week. We shall see if that lasts. 

D-Day - Part One

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"That chap right there, I just plain don't like him." Gen. BRO discussing tactics with his Field Generals. The Americans plan was basically get up the beach and work the rest out later. 

One of the advantages of Memoir '44 is the wealth of scenarios that are available and the fact there have been so many battle reports recorded.  This allows you to work out roughly how slanted the scenarios are one way or the other.  I have had a hankering to do a D-Day game for quite a while and while our much ambitious ideas haven't come to fruition, nor are they likely to, I was glad that we managed to tackle it to some extent. 

Troops wading through the surf at Omaha beach

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We played three game on the day.  Omaha Beach, followed by Sword Beach and concluding with St. Lo.  This made it much easier to organise as I didn't have to write any scenarios and I had a good idea of what the win/loss percentages are. 

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A spot of Robert Capa style camera shake as the lads dash up the beach. 

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I was lucky enough to get a lucky eBay from a chap who was disposing of a large collection of landing craft. These are I think Airfix and aren't waterline models, but seem to work fairly well just plonked on the mat. 

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The venerable Airfix D-Day beach defences looking out over the seawall. 

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Another shot of the Airfix D-Day defences, Conflix pill box in the middle distance. 

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The American Commanders ponder their options.

 Note the shell craters in the foreground indicate hexes that are out of play. 

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General Clint Fatzenberg discusses the utility of using the seawall as cover. 

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We also had some very special visitors. Boomerowski Junior's clenched fist and gimlet eye were exactly the sort of thing that the Americans needed to give them some backbone. 

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The Americans are making some progress, but are taking casualties. 

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The landing craft don't actually have a game function in this scenario. They were mainly used for set dressing. We used them to count victory points. Each time an American unit was killed, we placed an explosion marker on one of the landing craft to keep score. 

A Frenchman awaiting liberation

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This chap might look a bit familiar to some of the more sharp eyed amongst you. I was given this figures as a gift several years ago by my good pal Mr. E. We used them to keep score during the game. Each time a German unit was killed, we added a French civilian to the cafe. 

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Having discussed their strategy upstairs the German team descended to view the flotilla facing them. 

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General GT Boomerowski orders the troops ashore, cigar clenched between his teeth, while Fatzenberg's DD Shermans take the sea wall. 

I didn't actually take any more pictures of this game as the whole thing was fast moving. Omaha Beach is a very tough scenario for the Americans and they lose 80% of the time.  The result was about on par with previous games, but hard fought none the less. If the Americans can get armour off the beach things can get very dicey for the defenders, but alas it was not to be. 

To be continued with Part Two: Sword Beach.