Finally, a combined defense of heavy machine guns, a 5 cm KwK 39 gun bunkered at the coast and Nebelwerfer rockets at the rear provide a daunting nut for the US infantry to crack. For our game, my German opponent was able to field forces as outlined in the published FOW scenario but I had to modify my American list slightly to fit my model collection.
Even with slight changes, our final lists had the US at a few more points stronger than the Germans as per the mission outline and the game rules. The first US boats land and platoons rush ashore. After an initial US naval bombardment which destroyed one stand of German infantry, my boats and DD tanks headed for the beach. In the initial wave, one DD tank sank in the water offshore and one boat was delayed in the bouncing surf. With two platoons of US infantry on French ground, they made way for the barb-wired seawall.
Further down the beach to the right, my three surviving Shermans rolled to the one exit causeway from the beach. DD Sherman tanks make it across the beach toward the exit ramp. In the opening salvo from the Germans, rocket fire came in from the rear of the table as entrenched guns fired from the beach defensive lines. US troops did well with dice roll saves and lost just a few teams before ending the turn pinned high on the beach.
German Nebelwerfers sit atop a hill overlooking the Allied objective. In the next couple turns, landing craft continued to meet mixed success in landing and stalling on the sea. One tank bogged in the sand but the other two rolled over the barbed wire to take up position at the line of minefields, sending fire into the Tobruk nests and gun bunker. A couple turns in, the bunker was in flames and the German machine guns had been dealt with.
The way was clearing for the US infantry to push inward. The 5 cm KwK burns in its bunker as US troops push over the seawall. DD tanks struggle through the coastal defenses and take heavy combined fire. Allied intelligence indicated that the German th Division, an inexperienced second-rate unit composed of conscripts from occupied parts of Poland and Russia whose morale was believed to be poor, would put up only token resistance.
Allied planners assured the attacking troops that the enemy positions would be pulverized before they made their assault. Due to the need for suitable tides, the attack had to occur during the first week of June or be delayed a minimum of two weeks.
The attack was initially scheduled to take place on June 5, but high winds and rough seas forced a postponement. Eisenhower and his senior officers met to discuss their options late in the evening on June 4.
Given the unfortunate run of hideous weather, a number of the officers considered an immediate invasion too much of a gamble. But when intelligence officers announced a window of clear weather for June 6, Eisenhower decided to go forward with the invasion. The bigger ships steamed out on June 3 and were joined by the rest of the task force over the succeeding days. For the assault on Omaha, the task force planned to use a wide range of surface vessels, including battleships. Although battleships were becoming increasingly obsolete by , they were perfectly suited for coastal bombardment.
Three Allied paratroop divisions, the U. The paratroopers were tasked with seizing bridges, crossroads, and road hubs behind the landing sites. They suffered heavy casualties in their quest to deny the Germans the ability to reinforce their frontline troops defending the targeted beaches. At first light on June 6, a massive air armada that included B bombers roared over the Normandy coastline.
The bombers pounded German positions on the bluffs overlooking the landing sites for two hours. German soldiers huddled in bunkers or trenches as deafening explosions shook the ground.
When the invasion fleet was within a dozen miles of the beaches, the ships began sending landing craft to shore. Army officers had hoped to get closer to shore before launching the craft, but the top brass chose to launch them well back from the shore in order to protect the fleet from German fire.
This resulted in 10 landing craft swamping in the rough seas. Allied rescue craft did their best to retrieve the water-logged infantrymen. Meanwhile, the rest of the landing craft headed for shore. The surface ships also opened fire at dawn. Targeting German positions along the bluffs that commanded Omaha Beach, the battleships Texasand Arkansas, supported by an escort of cruisers and destroyers, unleashed a deafening barrage that thundered across the surface of the English Channel.
The battleships possessed fearsome firepower in the form of 10 inch guns on the Texas and 12 inch guns on the Arkansas. As the big guns belched great clouds of smoke and flame, infantry in nearby landing craft were heartened by the show. Lobbing explosive shells that weighed as much as 1, pounds, the ships pounded the bluffs above Omaha Beach, which were soon wreathed in dense clouds of smoke and dust.
As the landing craft approached the beach, the battleships ceased fire. At that point, the rocket ships unleashed an estimated 14, rockets in a matter of minutes. When the Allied naval bombardment and aerial bombing stopped, dazed German troops emerged from deep within bunkers to man their fighting positions.
Although the assault troops had been led to believe that they would face second-rate troops, Allied intelligence had discerned, albeit too late, that the beach was defended by the more resilient troops of the newly formed nd Division.
The nd contained a core of veterans who had gained combat experience on the Eastern Front. After the formation of the division in the autumn of , the troops expected to be sent to fight the Russians but soon learned that they would be sent to Normandy.
They mistakenly believed it would be a relatively quiet assignment. The men of the nd Division realized by early summer that the chance for an Allied invasion in Normandy was likely. High-ranking German officers grew anxious that the heights overlooking Omaha Beach were vulnerable to capture by the Allies. When the smoke from the bombers and naval guns lifted, it revealed the complete failure of the Allies to soften up the German positions.
The Bs , which had been designed for high-level bombing of strategic targets, had largely missed the mark and dropped most of their ordnance behind the German positions. As for the naval artillery, it had failed to do serious damage to the well-engineered German fortifications. The bulk of the noisy rocket salvo fell harmlessly in the shallows in front of Omaha.
Despite the unparalleled display of firepower, German defenses were largely unscathed. It was an unexpected and ominous development. Outright bad luck did not help matters. When the DD tanks began launching, affairs quickly degenerated into a fiasco.
Set afloat in violent breakers, the Shermans foundered in high waves and sank to the bottom of the sea. Lucky crew members climbed out of the tanks before they went under; however, those who remained trapped inside the ton behemoths perished. Only a relative handful of Sherman tanks, taken closer to shore by quick-thinking officers, succeeded in landing on the beach. For the grim task of assaulting Omaha, the infantry was largely on its own.
As the assault boats plunged through the surf, the men crammed aboard suffered immensely. The choppy seas ensured that the GIs were drenched to the bone and violently seasick. Many of the Higgins boats were leaking badly, and in an effort to stay afloat the troops frantically bailed seawater with their helmets. Near the western end of the beach, Company A was right on target as it neared its assigned landing zone at Dog Green.
But adjacent companies, whose landing craft were pushed off course by strong currents, were badly out of position. As the men of Company A prepared to go ashore, they did so without adequate flank support. Germans in the heavily defended Vierville draw concentrated their fire on the isolated company.
The entire operation began to unravel. Before the craft made landfall, they were taken under heavy fire. One unlucky landing craft inexplicably sank 1, yards offshore, while the troops onboard activated their life vests and tried desperately to stay afloat. Another ill-fated craft abruptly disappeared in a violent fireball, the apparent victim of an enemy shell. When the Higgins boats made landfall and dropped their ramps, the horrific realities of combat manifested in seconds.
German machine-gun fire swept through the craft. Scores of men were killed and wounded in a matter of minutes. Those still on their feet struggled forward through the water; as they did so, they endured a steady hail of machine-gun fire. Those who survived the enemy fire crouched behind German antitank obstacles. Pinned down in a deadly interlaced field of enemy machine-gun fire, Company A was out of action.
To its left, Companies G and F, which had been forced off target by the waves, came into the beach together, an inviting mass of targets for the German defenders of Les Moulins draw.
As the companies waded ashore, they ran a terrifying gauntlet of enemy fire. Sergeant Henry Bare remembered the carnage as sickening. The remnants of the two companies inched their way forward across the beach to the seawall, which offered a measure of cover from German machine-gun fire, but little protection from mortar and artillery fire. When they ran into a coiled mass of barbed wire, the men were helplessly stalled.
Company A, which was following with 16 M4A1 tanks equipped with wading equipment lost three tanks on the way in, and so only 18 of the 48 tanks allocated to the eastern beaches arrived intact. The two regiment's artillery suffered equally as badly. Many of the guns were lost when the DUKWs being used to transport them to shore foundered in the heavy seas. Just as on Utah beach the prevailing tides and currents pushed the attacking Americans left, so most units landed to the left of their original targets.
Three companies ended up on Fox Green, with another concentrate just to their left at the eastern end of Easy Red. Unlike on Utah this had disastrous results, for it brought the Americans under the German guns defending exits E-3 and F All along the beach the first wave was held at the water line. A Company, 1st Battalion, th Regiment, was almost completely destroyed on Dog Green, but the follow-up troops achieved some of the first breakthroughs. Two small parties from the next company to the east managed to clamber up to Vierville, leaving the beach fortifications intact.
The next company to come in also found this gap, and by Further east two companies from the th Regiment landed around the Les Moulins exits, where smoke shielded them from the worst of the German fire.
Elements from these companies were able to reach Les Moulins, but once again the German beach defences were left intact.
This would soon cause a new crisis, as the next waves of artillery and vehicles attempted to land under fire, filling the beach with wrecked equipment. At the eastern end of the beach three of the four companies from the 16th Regiment landed on Fox Green, where they suffered terrible casualties at the hands of the intact German guns defending the approaches to Colleville. Only at the extreme eastern end of the beach did events go better.
Here two battalions from the 16th Regiment were able to climb up the fifth and final draw and reach the top of the escarpment, but their task was to work their way east along the cliff tops to join up with the British to the east.
The Americans held a narrow strip of beach, while small parties were behind the German lines. The beach had become dangerously congested, and for some time no more equipment was landed. It was at this stage that the Navy played a direct part in the battle. The intensity and danger of the naval bombardment steadily increased across the morning,.
For most of the morning the American foothold on Omaha beach was very fragile, and it was fortunate that the Germans were unable to find any significant reinforcements. General Kraiss was more concerned with the British armour to the east, which at one point threatened to break through his lines, and sent his main reserves east to deal with this threat.
For some time during the morning both the Germans and Americans were convinced that the attack was failing, but in fact the situation was finally improving. The th and 18th Regimental Combat Teams reached the beaches, and helped to secure the American beachhead. Slowly key German defensive positions fell into Allied hands, and at East Red beach was now relatively safe, allowing reinforcements to land.
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