Games in Planning - Le Fiere Bridge - 6 June 1944

The Butchers of the Bell Curve group were originally planning to do an actual 6th June game, but since this worked out to be a Thursday, this gaming night was pushed back to the 7th.

AWB have not been slack and in the answer to 'what do you want to do?' it was decided to attempt to do something semi historical and the attack by everyone's Cotentin Peninsula armoured unit, Panzer Ersatz und Ausbildungs Abteilung 100 on the 82nd Airborne at Le Fiere.

Couple of main sources for this battle, first the web page that got AWB interested in this battle about five years ago, HERE which is a VERY detailed investigation into EXACTLY what vehicles were used in the battle and also has some very inspiring location photos, and second, from The Airborne Assault chapter of 'Utah Beach to Cherbourg' HERE which gives the US side of the battle with some very nice maps.

For those not able to follow the links, the US paras dropped both sides of the Merderet River and by and large formed up on the prominent rail embankment during the dawn. They then moved forward to cross the Merderet at La Fiere and secure the bridgehead as part of their overall objectives.

This stage went well, the 82nd drove off the scattered German defenders, said 'That was easy' and, following their pre-drop orders, most of the forces involved promptly marched off towards their other objectives safe in the knowledge that SOMEONE must have assigned a unit to stay behind and defend.

Well... yes... we can see where this story is going can't we?

About an hour later, a major German counter attack supported by Pz.100 came in and retook the west bank, isolating many US units west of the river and causing about 4 days of headaches before they were able to drive the Germans out again.

The intended game AWB is planning to put on will pick up from the start of the German counter attack. System of choice will be Battlefront which will be most likely played pretty straight with no special rule changes.

Forces are a bit of a guess. On the US side all three parachute regiments were pretty intermixed and while our source (see 2nd link above) does give us a fair bit to go on, the units involved at this stage are still a little TBA (read - AWB hasn't finished taking detailed notes yet...).

Germans are a much bigger guess. We know that Pz.100 was involved in the attack and (thanks to the first link) we know how many tanks they left behind. How many actually attacked is a bit of another guess. The bulk of the forces we can assume are 91st Infantry but breaking it down to a greater level of identification has proved a bit trickier so far.

The other condition is that regardless of how many forces were actually involved, in order to keep the game actually playable and finishable in the one night, forces will be restricted to 2-3 companies plus support each. This is probably not that far from the historical reality and also should make the game very manageable under the rules selected.

Photos and more details in a few days...