While dispensing with the four turns of softening up present in the SF ETO scenarios, "Operation OVERLORD" retains the actual invasion turn, unlike its sister scenario "Victory in the West". The idea of the scenario is not to simply chop two months off the beginning of the SF scenario, but to provide a historical beginning to the scenario. The pre-planning is necessary because of the fixed German setup. The fixed setup is reciprocally necessary because of the set Normandy invasion site.

Allied Naval Capability. The optional rule on Allied amphibious landing costs is simply an attempt to get this scenario to jive with the "Victory in the West" setup and the "Europa as History". As also discussed in relation to the scenario "Invasion of Sicily" (see TEM #48), the reworked Second Front amphibious rules (See TEM #40) do not allow NTs to land units directly on friendly beaches. Although this change helps the play of the game considerably by making LCs more important for continued beach maintenance, as they were historically, it creates problems in recreating the historical Allied build-up rates. The Allied buildup during the first week ashore was massive, as you can note by the accompanying articles.

Two solutions suggested themselves - add LCs to the order of battle or ease the amphibious landing restrictions. Giving the Allies a special dispensation for the Jun I turn seemed like the most conservative solution as adding LCs creates other problems.

Axis players may understandably argue strongly against this rule. That's fine and we don't try to make any suggestion that SF should be changed to incorporate our optional rule. We simply say that we were unable to get the whole Normandy "project" to mesh without it or something like it, at least to our personal liking. It could well be our own lack of creativity or our interpretation of the historical Allied buildup that was the problem.

Letting the NTs land everything but combat / motorized units is the first step; cutting the landing time to 30 MP is the second. This lets the NTs land two "waves" in the exploitation phase, yielding about 130 total naval transport capacity, but a number of these lose time in queue waiting for ship-to-shore LCs to become available. A few resource points and supply points must also land and the capacity comes somewhat in line with the "Victory in the West" starting dispositions.

Stacking. Allowing AA and construction to do their jobs from overstack makes some sense and gives a rationale for landing Allied AA units and non-combat engineers in the first place.

AECD vs. Airborne Assaults. This little special rule is just to give some reason for the Germans to station the 1-6 panzer battalion deep in the bocage of the Contentin. It is totally unnecessary for a regular game but, given a historical setup, we like to give Rommel and von Rundstedt credit for at least understanding AEC.

Reaction. The standard reaction rules result in a strange situation when looking at the Normandy invasion. With four hexes invaded the Axis player gets four reaction die rolls. A rational strategy here is for the Axis player to roll for 21st Panzer XX until the 21st activates. That may be the design intent, but we felt in running through the invasion that the actual German commanders had no decision on the crucial morning of 6 June comparable to "let's attempt to get the 2 1 st Panzer to react again." Hitler was, of course, taking his famous nap, thanks to Dr. Morell's sleeping draught, and it can be argued that the Germans just rolled bad four times. However, other units were moving, including the 6th Parachute Regiment near St. Lo as described in the accompanying "Europa as History."

The optional reaction rule suggests three changes:

a) a unit is penalized for making more than one reaction attempt;
b) units may react to airborne operations;
c) small units are more likely to react than big units.

Assisting small units in their reaction attempt helps balance the restriction of multiple reactions by the favored big units. It also seems intuitive that smaller units could react more nimbly, but there is really not enough data available (due to the small number of airborne and amphibious reactions conducted historically) to conclusively prove this assertion one way or another.

SAS / Maquis. In 1944 all SAS (Special Air Service) units were concentrated in the UK into a Special Air Service Brigade, commanded by Brig Roderick McLeod. The brigade was composed of:

1st SAS Regiment and 2nd SAS Regiment (1,000 men);
3rd SAS Regiment and 4th SAS Regiment (1,000 men);
250 Belgian parachutists (presumably from 5th SAS)

"The task given to these special forces was to impose the maximum delay on the movement of German reinforcements to Normandy, and thereafter to assist in the arming and training of the Maquis and to harass the Germans."

These units were inserted by air, beginning on June 6th , along with some American OSS Jedburgh teams, primarily in Brittany to block the movement of German forces towards Normandy. Most of the OSS teams were inserted into Eastern France.

RMAS vs. 30" Eng Tank X. Portions of the 30th X landed on D-Day, most of the RMAS did, or at least it attempted to. There is only stacking space for one in the invasion planning. After considerable debate, we went with the funnies and let the Royal Marine gunners come ashore in the exploitation phase.

Tunnel Busting. On the evening of 8 June 617 Squadron first used the 12,0001b "Tallboy" bomb against the rail tunnel at Samur in an effort to block 17' SS Panzergrenadier XX from reaching the Normandy front. They destroyed the tunnel, which was not repaired until after the war, but the 17th SS still made it to the front.

More Operation Overlord

Introduction
Designer's Notes
Order of Battle: Axis (June I 1944) Ground Forces
Order of Battle: Axis (June I 1944) Air Forces
Order of Battle: Allis (June I 1944) Ground Forces
Order of Battle: Allis (June I 1944) Air Forces