The Battle of Normandy

[Fhil]

Situation report
12:00 hrs

St. Mere Eglise



American units from the beach and paratroopers almost in contact, last defenders holding the bunkers against overwhelming enemy forces. St. Mere Eglise and it´s surrounding is almost fully under enemy control. There are two very important objectives in this area, which has to be controled in order to keep the invading forces in check on this part of Normandy - heavy bridges at Carentan and Etienville. Fallshirmjäger Regt 6 splits in order to reinforce the weak forces holding those two. I. Btl reaches the latter already, luckily engineers from 91.Luftland.Div. didn´t blow up the bridge there yet, instead makes contact with the isolated PzJ.Kp.191 that keeps 82nd´s paras from reaching the bridge. II.Btl is on the way and III.Btl already digging in at the bridges to the north of Carentan. In front of them is a screening force from 91.Luftland.Div´s III/GR. 1058, holding St. Come du Mont.

Treviers



All bunkers and pillboxes are still in 352.ID´s hands, American units pinned down on the beaches. Many Allied ships approach closer to the coast, shelling the defenders´ bunkers. Some of them will be destroyed there by our artillery fire.

Bayeux



British 50th ID advances inland some 4 kms, while Canadian 3rd division only slowly disrupts the bunkers and is mostly still pinned on the beach.

Caen



British 3rd. ID pinned on the beach as well (they are still not blowing up the AT-Dithes). Meanwhile, 6th Para.Div´s troops grow impatient and try to advance in all directions, some of their units getting isolated by 21.PzDiv. It´s Pz.Regt. 22 fully equiped with almost 100 pz.IVs is already on the way with orders of immediatelly counterattack towards the Benouville bridge.

I was suprised to be able to keep all of those beaches sectors ´till now, except for Omaha, where it´s harder for Allies to get out of. If I remember correctly, Carl then discovered he missed the AT-ditches and thus he didn´t use his engineers to blow them up to allow his tanks to assault the bunkers. This will be most fatal at the Sword beach sector for the 6th Airborne Division.

HINT

When dealing with amphibious landings as a defender, (Normandy, Salerno, Anzio, Sicily for example), but in other combat situations as well, my top priority target for all direct and indirect fire are opponent´s engineer units. Try to disrupt as many of them as possible, and even when they are all disrupted, when switching to ordinary infantry stacks on the beaches, fire at least few shots on them to make it more difficult for them to rally. Engineers can clear obstacles and minefields on the beaches and also have high Assault and Hard values. Also, when there is a hex containing units from more than one of enemy divisions, try to shoot and disrupt them in such a way that will leave the possible attacking force against your positions in as big mix of various units as it gets, keeping in mind the penalty applied to assaults containing units from various organisations. These were just some hints for new or not that experienced players I will post some here and there when it comes to my mind.

Next report will show us the situation by the evening of the first day.