Everyone has heard of Omaha Beach and Juno Beach and Utah Beach and so on... but few know of the D-Day landing at Oregon Beach, just up the road apiece. For this historical reenactment, played solo style, I employed my 20mm figures and defined a single stand of 3 infantry figures as a company.
I grouped 3 such stands, 9 men, into a battalion, and formed several of the battalions into a brigade. A couple of brigades, and you’ve got a division. At Oregon Beach, the invading force consisted of 9 battalions grouped into 3 brigades... essentially a single division action.
The defending force consisted of only 7 battalions, but they were hidden away in the towns.
The infantry units themselves had no anti-tank capability, and so to each 3-stand infantry battalion was another stand... what I termed a "tank-hunter team". The tank-hunters were fairly brittle... it took only a single hit to destroy the stand, but if it stayed attached to an infantry battalion, the battalion would absorb all the hits tossed the way of the tank-hunters. Once the battalion was knocked out, the next hit annihilated the tank-hunter.
There was another type of stand which could be attached to a battalion. This was a machine gun (MG) stand. In truth, it wasn’t a "machine gun", but it represented a heavy weapons capability for the battalion. Here, too, attached to the battalion, the battalion shielded the MG from injury, and absorbed all its hits.
Landing
The landing commenced and 2 battalions of the Allied force made straight for the beach-side town of Noir. Another two battalions went, unopposed, up the beach, advancing toward Quarl, but once they reached the woods fronting Quarl, they were stuck... they simply couldn’t roll percentage dice to pass their "rough terrain" test to proceed through the woods, and became mired down for the rest of the battle.
In the sequence, I provided for artillery fire cover prior to the close assault phase. I assumed that each battalion had "intrinsic" artillery support, which could be brought in with a dice throw of 70 percent or under.
Each hit on a battalion knocked off a figure, and in addition to the basic 3-man stands, I had an assortment of 1-man and 2-men stands to "make change" when a unit was hit. There was no provision for reinforcing a battalion once it was hit, i.e., bringing it back up to strength. Which meant that the engaged battalions were gradually getting worn down.
But even as the battalions were losing strength, there was a key provision for bringing in reinforcements... every time a side won a close assault combat, it received one additional battalion as a reinforcement, or reserve. I diced for the type of reserve battalion that would appear, either an armored unit or another infantry battalion. This was why it was so important for the Allies to drive the defenders out of Noir... once they had captured the town their reinforcement battalion would show up on the beach.
My thought was that both sides would want to "reinforce success"... once one of their units had clobbered an enemy battalion, the Headquarters staff would then toss in a reinforcing battalion to further help out.
At Noir, the Allied 6th battalion closed with the defending 14th Battalion. Combat was resolved battalion-on-battalion... no supports were allowed. And prior to the battle, I had diced for each unit on both sides, deciding their status as either elite or regular or poor. It turned out the Allied 6th was regular, its opposing battalion was elite.
There were 2 phases to combat... first, determining casualties, and second, determining the winner. The first phase summed up a number of Combat Points (CP). For example, at Noir, we had:
- Allied 6th
- (a) During its advance, the 6th suffered lots of casualties, and was down, from its original 9, to 7 men. Each man contributed 10 CP, giving the unit 70 CP
(b) The 6th had an MG (heavy weapons), adding another 20 CP
(c) A percentage dice toss of 49 gave the 6th a total of 139 CP
German 14th
- (a) The 14th was down to 4 men... they had 40 CP
(b) The battalion had its MG... giving it 20 CP
(c) The 14th received another 20 CP for defending a town
(d) A dice throw of 99 gave the 14th a total of 179 CP
Now we went to the Combat Table, shown below, which determined the enemy losses that resulted from each unit’s accumulation of CP. Note that there are 3 rows in the table, one for elite, one for regular, one for poor. It was my thought that, given the same number of CP in combat, an elite unit should whomp the enemy more strongly than a regular unit, and much more than a poor unit.
| STATUS | TOTAL COMBAT POINTS | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 to 100 | 101 to 150 | 151 to 200 | Over 200 | |
| Elite | 1 hit | 3 hits | Lose MG 4 hits | Lose MG 5 hits |
| Regular | 1 hit | 2 hits | 3 hits | Lose MG 4 hits |
| Poor | No effect | 1 hit | 2 hits | 3 hits |
From the table, the 129 total of the 6th , a regular unit, resulted in 2 hits (2 men removed) on the 14th. The 14th was down to 2 men. The 179 total of the 14th, an elite unit, resulted in 4 men removed from the 6th and destroyed its MG. The 6th was down to 3 men, with no heavy weapons capbility.
Second Phase
The second phase was to determine the winner of the combat. Here, both sides did the following, receiving a number of points for each remaining infantryman.
- Allied 6th
- (a) With 3 men, each contributing 10 points, the 6th had a total of 30 points
(b) A percentage dice toss of 55 gave the 6th a total of 85
German 14th
- (a) With 2 men remaining, the 14th had 20 points.
(b) A dice toss of 47 gave the 14th a total of 67.
The higher total of the Allied 6th meant that it had won... a significant Allied victory... Noir was now in Allied hands, and an additional Allied battalion showed up on the beach. I diced for its type, and it turned out to be an armored unit. Two tank stands comprised a tank battalion.
The remnants of the once elite, once proud, 14th retreated... now down to a mere 2 men. Alas for the 14th! It was immediately assaulted, in its pitiful state, by another Allied battalion. "Pick on the cripples!" was the Allied order of the day. Another combat, another Allied victory and another Allied unit landed on the beach.
This was a solo affair, and I used card decks to determine who did what to whom. The actual sequence for the half-bound consisted of 7 phases:
- 1. The active side moves all units 10 inches. Battalions could approach no closer than 2 inches to the enemy.
2. The non-active side calls in for an airstrike. Here, there was a 40 percent chance a plane would appear. As I remember, due to the low percentage, each side had only a single airstrike during the battle. When an aircraft appeared, all ground movement stopped due to the relatively high rate of aircraft movement. The plane then moved over the field in 10 inch increments, and could strafe targets within 10 inches. All ground battalions were deemed to have an anti-aircraft (AA) capability, also ranging out to 10 inches, and it took only 4 hits before a plane was shot down. The planes weren’t that powerful... purposefully so... but they added "something" to the scenario.
3. This was the firing phase, and both sides fired alternately.
- (1) I used a 10-card fire deck, and diced to see how many of the cards were selected for the phase.
- 01 to 33 : 6 cards
34 to 66 : 5 cards
67 to 100 : 4 cards
(2) I then diced to see which side drew the first card. The same battalions could fire on different card draws. The content of the deck was:
- 1 card : 1 battalion fires, 1 enemy MG destroyed (dice for the particular unit)
1 card Dice for enemy battalion that is out of ammo for remainder of this turn
2 cards : 2 battalions fire
2 cards : 3 battalions fire
2 cards : 4 battalions fire
2 cards : End of fire phase
Note that there were two ways to end the fire phase. Either all the cards were drawn, or it was terminated prematurely by a draw of the "End of fire phase" card.
4. Non active side vehicles moved 10 inches, approaching no closer than 2 inches. Note that when a side was active, all of its units moved 10 inches. Here, its vehicles got a chance to move during the opponent’s half of the bound.
5. This is the pre-melee phase. Since the non-active side’s vehicles had just moved, I gave the active side an additional fire capability by having it draw one card from the above fire deck for possible defensive fire.
6. All attacking units (both sides) closed, and I used the Combat Table, as described above, to resolve combat.
7. This was a rally phase.
- (a) Both sides rallied troops in the Rally Zone. When an infantry battalion was hit and lost a figure, it took a morale test at an 80 percent level. If it failed, one man was sent to the off-board rally zone. On this phase, the man attempted to rejoin his unit. If he failed (80 percent chance to pass), he was considered killed.
(b) A tank battalion consisted of only 2 tank models. When hit, I placed a marker on them. This phase determined if the markers were fatal. Each contributed 20 percent to the chance that one of the tanks in the unit blew up.
And so the battle continued. The Allies continued their succession of victories, and more and more Allied units poured onto the beach. While the Germans did win a couple of combats, they played defensively since they were, from the first, outnumbered, and couldn’t do any fancy footwork... they were mainly confined to protecting the towns.
And so, Oregon Beach fell into Allied hands... another historically correct Simon scenario.
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© Copyright 2001 Wally Simon
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