WW2 wargaming on the floor

This weekend my wife is away and when this happens there is always the opportunity to undertake some floor wargaming. Last time the floor wargame was of a D-Day style landing using "A Landing in Force" from "War Game Campaigns" by Donald Featherstone as inspiration (here). This weekend I have decided upon a D-Day style again using a scenario from "Operation Warboard" by Gavin Lyall. I have done by best to recreate the map from the book, but it has ended up being slightly elongated.

Map using Operation Warboard as a guide

The book from the book was based upon a map of King beach in the Normandy Gold landing area.

Source of inspiration for the game. My rather battered copy of Operation Warboard with one of the more interesting book covers. 

Having sketched out a map the floor was cleared and various wargaming cloths used to set up the game. The playable area ended up being 6 foot by 12 foot. Pretty much all my wargaming scenery was consumed laying out the terrain. I did avoid putting down any fiddly terrain and lichen as I will be stepping all over the gaming area carefully watching where I place my feet.

The playing area all set up with terrain and defending units

The defending German order of battle:

• Tank company (2 x Panther tank units and 2 x Panzer IV tank units)
• 3 Infantry companies (3 x infantry units and 1 x mortar/howitzer gun)
• 1 Mortorised company (3 x Motorised units and 1 x Stug III)
• 1 Armoured Car company (2 armoured car units)
• 2 x AT guns (75mm and 88mm)
• 2 x Artillery (105mm)

German defending forces

The Armoured Car and Tank companies are in held in reserve and will arrive on turn 5.

The Allied order of battle is:

Wave 1

• 1 infantry company (3 x infantry units and 1 x mortar unit)
• 1 tank company (1 x Cromwell tank and 2 x Churchill tank units)
• Supporting units (1 x buffalo infantry units, 1 x DUKW infantry unit, 1 x recon unit)

Wave 2

• 2 infantry companies (3 x infantry units and 1 x mortar unit)
• Supporting units (1 x Sherman flail tank, 1 Churchill AVRE Fascine Carrier, 1 x recon unit)

Wave 3

• 1 tank company (3 x Sherman units)
• 1 artillery troop (2 x 25 pounder units)
• 1 mechanised infantry company (4 x mechanised infantry units and 1 x 6 pounder AT gun)
• 1 Air Support

Throughout the game there will be artillery support available from the ships.

Allied landing forces

The game begins with the first wave of Allied troops arriving. To represent the difficulty of landing units where you want them to land. The following rules are used:

• Each unit will arrive at one of the 6 beach zone represented by a landing craft. A D6 dice is used to randomly decide which landing craft is used. 
• In one turn only 2 units may deploy from a single landing craft. Those units unable to land because a landing area already has 2 units, must attempt again the following turn.
• The following wave cannot begin its landing until all the previous wave has successfully landed.

Two tank "funnies" a Sherman Flail and hastily made Churchill AVRE Fascine Carrier with a cotton reel covered with masking tape. 

The German units are positioned on gaming area. Because most of the defending units are in prepared positions and I lack terrain to represent this I have used hedges to show units in prepared defence positions. They will be treated as being in cover.

The first line of defence on the beach has guns and pillboxes

Supporting the beach defences are an infantry company (their tent are just folded cardboard)

The second line of defence on one of the steep hills and centre crossroads

The second line of defence continues by the second of the steep hills

The third line of defence in the town

Reserve which will arrive on turn 5

The Allied plan is drawn up. It has three phases with three objectives:

• To control the beach taking small collection of buildings (objective 1)
• To push on to the centre crossroads and hold this position (objective 2)
• Attack on the village (objective 3).

The Allied plan

The next couple of posts will be of the game and rules used...