Getting Battle for the Beach

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Grab the free bonus game Battle for the Beach (by Mark H. Walker, artwork by Nicolas Eskubi) using this link. You will need to enter the username of "omaha" and the password is the "download key" found on P. 63 of the July 2004 issue of Armchair General magazine. This game comes in the form of a PDF file and is a hex-based tabletop wargame. You will need to print the map and units (counters) before you can play the game.

Missed the issue?  Missed the game?  Try Mark H. Walker’s website for an expanded version of this game.  Click here!

Introduction

The successful invasion of Normandy was a forgone conclusion. The weight of the Allied navy, airforce, and army was a hefty hammer, and the German beach defenses no more than an egg. A thick-shelled egg to be sure, but an egg none the less.

Yet despite the inevitable success of the invasion of Normandy, the American’s struggle for Omaha Beach on June 6th, 1944, was a tough, bloody battle. There, on the north coast of Normandy, a combination of rough weather, ineffectual air support, tough terrain, and aggressive German defenders, stalled the American assault, and almost threw the men and machines of the U.S. 1st and 29th Infantry Divisions back into the English Channel.

Despite it’s momentous repercussions, the battle for Omaha Beach wasn’t a large battle. Eight companies of American infantry stormed ashore at 6:30 in the morning. The seas had tossed them, the currents pulled them off course, and the intense naval and air bombardment had done little more than alert the beach’s Wehrmacht defenders. When the landing craft ramps fell, the GIs were greeted with a hail of rifle and machinegun fire.

Most of the first wave was decimated as they ran from the landing craft. The survivors sought cover behind the anti-tank obstacles that covered the shallows or ran across the beach, and flattened themselves against the sea wall. Two battalions of duplex-drive, or DD, Sherman Tanks were to provide armor support for the infantrymen. Unfortunately, heavy seas swamped all but a handful of the 742nd Battalion’s Shermans. Luckily, the coxswains piloting the LCTs ferrying the 743rd Battalion’s tanks drove to shore and deposited their cargo directly on the beach. The firepower of the Shermans’ 75mm guns, coupled with small groups of courageous American soldiers began to whittle away at the German defenders.

Demolition teams blasted gaps through the German beach defense, soldiers worked their way up the draws, and U.S, Navy destroyers steamed dangerously close to shore, raking the German strongpoint with murderous fire. Still a concerted counterattack by the Germans might have halted the American’s advance. But the Germans, believing they had defeated the landing, diverted their reserves to counterattack the British pushing inland at Gold Beach.

By noon the outcome was no longer in question. The follow up regiments (115th, 18th, and 26th) waded ashore, and by the end of D-Day the Americans had pressed inland. It was a precarious beachhead – two thousand American soldiers had died that day, and only 100 tons of a scheduled 2,400 tons of supplied had landed. But the German coastal defenses had cracked, and the Allies had a toehold in Europe.

The Game
Omaha: The Battle for the Beach covers only a slice of the Omaha landings. It’s a Dog and Charlie beach-sized slice to be exact. This is an important decision, perhaps the most important decision in the game. We like flavorful games, games that are more concerned with the feel of a battle than tomes of analysis, and to capture that feel, you must get personal – design the game on a scale that truly shows the frustrations, fears, and challenges that the soldiers felt that smoky morning sixty years ago. We felt a tactical platoon level does just that.

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