In my last post I outlined the Tailleville campaign, giving a little historic context and the high-level disposition of the forces involved. Today I’d like to talk about some more granular details, namely the support available to the opposing forces and the scenarios they’ll be fighting over.

Support

The guidance for the German support in this campaign provided in At the Sharp End is pretty clear: no armour! Below is the German support list with pretty much everything with wheels removed. As a static division the 736th had few vehicles. I’ve also stripped out most engineer options as the division shouldn’t find themselves in a position where they need to overcome defences.

GERMAN SUPPORT LIST

LIST ONE

Single Compound Charge or similar
Medical Orderly
Adjutant
Minefield
Barbed Wire
Entrenchments for one Team

LIST TWO

Roadblock
Panzerschreck Team, 2 men
5cm mortar Team, 2 men
Panzerknacker Team, 4 men
Senior Leader
Pre Game Barrage

LIST THREE

Pioneer Flamethrower Team, 3 men
Sniper Team
Green Infantry Squad with Junior Leader

LIST FOUR

Pioneer Squad with Junior Leader
Regular Infantry Squad with Junior Leader
Forward Observer and 8cm mortar battery
37mm AA Gun, 5 crew with Junior Leader
Regular MG 42 on tripod mount, 5 crew
Pak 35 anti tank gun with Stielgrenate. 5 crew and a Junior Leader
le IG.18 with 5 crew and Junior Leader

LIST FIVE

Pak 38 anti tank gun, 5 crew and Junior Leader

LIST SIX

LIST SEVEN

Pak 40 with 5 crew and a Junior Leader
sIG 33 Infantry Gun, 5 crew with Junior Leader

On the Canadian side they had armour starting to roll on to the beach, but many other specialist assets hadn’t organised themselves yet. That said, they have quite a balanced range of options available to them.

CANADIAN SUPPORT LIST

LIST ONE

Sticky Bomb or similar
Medical Orderly
Engineer Mine Clearance Team, 3 men
Engineer Wire Cutting Team, 3 men
Engineer Demolition Team, 3 men
Jeep, no crew
Adjutant

LIST TWO

PIAT Team, 2 men
2” mortar Team, 2 men
Pre Game Barrage

LIST THREE

Engineer Flamethrower Team, 3 men
Sniper Team
Universal Carrier with Team and Junior Leader

LIST FOUR

Engineer Section with Junior Leader
Regular Infantry Section with Junior Leader
Forward Observer and 3” mortar battery
40mm Bofors Gun, 5 crew with Junior Leader

LIST FIVE

Recce Section of two Universal Carriers, 4 crew each. One Junior Leader
6 pounder anti tank gun with 5 crew and Junior Leader
M5 Stuart Light Tank with Junior Leader

LIST SIX

M4 Sherman with Junior Leader
17 Pounder anti tank gun with 5 crew and Junior Leader

LIST SEVEN

Sherman Firefly with Junior Leader
Churchill Tank with Junior Leader

LIST EIGHT

LIST NINE

Churchill AVRE with Junior Leader

Scenarios

Here’s the campaign ladder from At the Sharp End as a reminder. Below are satellite images from the red rectangles marked and battlefield terrain screenshots from the VASSAL module.

Game 1 – Outposts West of St. Aubin

Scenario 2 (The Probe, P.75).

In this map I tried to capture the open ground behind the dunes leading into some farmland. The holiday villas are there to breakup the openness of the map and to offer possible focal points for the fighting.

Game 2 – Retreat from St. Aubin

Scenario 4 (Delaying Action)

The wheat fields offer light cover, so this battlefield is not as open as it apepars at a glance. Again the farm offers a possible focal point. With the Germans defending on in the south (right edge) they have the treeline as a possible line of defence.

Game 3 – The Main Defences before Tailleville

Scenario 3 (Attack & Defend)

Again the fields offer light cover. The ditches along the road are hard cover, but as the fight will occur from top-to-bottom they may just offer clear lanes of fire. Advancing through the fields offer and making use of the cover offered by the copse of trees is probably the best avenue of attack.

Game 4 – The Outskirts of Tailleville

Scenario 6 (An Attack on an Objective)


This was the trickiest map to build. I wanted something with a distinctive feel over the other maps, but I didn’t want to have too many houses. This was mainly because in a platoon scale game it wouldn’t be plausible to be fighting over a full town the size of Tailleville. As such this map represents the outskirts of the town.

So that’s it for the Support options and Scenarios. Now it’s time to have some games!

Until next time,

Owen