“FRANCE 1944 D-DAY” DETAILED ALLIED FIRST TURN

[Curtis Lemay]

I’ve described my “France 1944 D-Day” scenario as “Five-Star SODUKO”. By that I mean it’s meant to be very difficult – especially the opening turn. It’s not for beginners. (While there is a need for “One-Star SODUKO” scenarios, there’s just as much of a need for some real challenges, too.) You’re going to want to save it until after you’ve mastered the finer points of TOAW.

But, at the same time, it could make a good training ground for achieving that skill level. And, some players have become frustrated with it and have requested help in solving it. To that end, I’ve created this “How to…” article. It will show, in detail, how I played an Allied 1st Turn to an acceptable lodgment in Normandy. The turn was played once, in one sitting, without reloads. I won’t suggest it to be the best anyone could do, but it should be good enough. Once the article is understood, players should be able to not only handle the difficult opening of “France 1944 D-Day”, but should be able to apply what he’s learned elsewhere. It’s a good primer on round management if nothing else.

Note that I think solving the “France 1944” problem is one of the fun things to do with TOAW, and if you read further, you won’t really get to, at least not on your own. So you are warned. And note that veteran players won’t see anything in here that they aren’t already familiar with. There’s no trick involved. The problem is solved by the usual TOAW skills – sound round management, sound marshalling of all resources, and sound suppressing of the enemy defenses.

Note that I’m using TOAW 3.2.29.21 with the new flanking rules and my new “France 1944 D-Day” version 3 (includes an equipment edit that in particular affects naval ranges). Neither of these are yet available to the public although the TOAW update is imminent.

And, now, let’s get started!

[Curtis Lemay]

Attached is a screenshot of the initial situation. I’ve circled where the Allied Theater Recon has revealed artillery in the rear. (Your results will be different). But we can be sure that there is more hidden in other places that won’t be revealed until we attack. The arrows show how Major Escarpments will channel the attacks. Only the Utah Beach forces have a choice where to attack.

Note that, in most cases, Allied assault-hex density is red. Also, the Attrition Divider is 4, making losses 2.5 times the rate of scenarios using the default AD setting. And we know there’s lots of German artillery support out there. Some assaults will be across escarpments against fortified defenders. We have to be judicious in the forces we commit to each attack until things improve, especially regarding infantry. But, at the same time, there’s real urgency to get ashore and get inland. Reinforcements are scheduled to arrive only in the beach hexes – currently occupied by the Germans!

Because of the increased losses expected, I regard the correct attacking setting to be “Limit Losses”, and that’s what I used when playing the turn. The objective is to only expend one combat-round per attack, to allow the maximum exploitation of attack successes. This could also be achieved via the “Minimize Losses” setting, but that setting has a problem at this attrition level: units can drop out just from defending artillery support and thereby without even assaulting. This seriously weakens attacks, especially against armored defenders, since it means that all defender losses come from attacking artillery support only. With Limit Losses, I find that units tend to hang around to actually assault after suffering the defending artillery support, and tend to only last one round in the assault. So it’s the best of both worlds. “Ignore Losses” tends to risk expending more than one round in some particularly thorny attacks, and should be avoided for attacking (there’s one exception I’ll show near the end). However, it is the preferred loss setting for defense, so if a unit is not attacking, I’ll usually set it to that, in case the turn ends.

Before setting up attacks, I recommend making a few changes to the air deployments. To most easily do this, select the first unit you can change from the Air Unit Report, then use the next unit buttons to go to each subsequent one. Every unit is needed, so take all of them you can out of Interdiction mode. P-38s, P-61s, Tempests, & Typhoons should go to Air Superiority. I don’t like to use low-altitude bombers or fighter-bombers to bomb with since they take too heavy losses to AAA. Finally, dig-in all the paratroop units since they can’t move this turn anyway.

[Curtis Lemay]

Attached is a screenshot of the Attack Planner for the Utah Beach assault. I’ve chosen the lower target hex, since that’s the one the reinforcements arrive in and links up to the paratroops. While it’s lightly defended and those defenders aren’t even to full-fortified level, we know it has lots of artillery support.

Note that the assault consists of one infantry regiment and one tank battalion, supported by nine naval units (including a BB and a Monitor) and four bomber units. I’m not expecting total success on the first try. But I expect it to be softened up a lot. Note that adding more ground units to the assault would be wasteful since, as I said, we know there’s lots of German artillery support in this area. The tank unit, being mostly invulnerable to artillery is especially helpful here.

Note that one artillery unit was moved into support range. I’ve left it on “Tactical Reserve” for indirect support. If I added it directly to the attack it could cost me a combat round because it’s been moved. Similarly, the Chemical Mortar unit has been put into the same mode. It’s only one-hex ranged, so that’s the only way it can provide support without suffering losses.

Enhancements to TOAW allow adjacent ranged units to bombard now. The advice in bold is now obsolete.

[Curtis Lemay]

Attached is a screenshot of the Attack Planner for the Pointe du Hoc attack. Only the ranger units shown can attack it. They’re supported by three naval units. Note that this assault will be across a minor escarpment.

Note that the naval units in the ranger’s hex were used elsewhere instead of here. Using naval units to attack an adjacent target is a good way to get your naval units sunk.

Edit: Enhancements to TOAW allow adjacent units to bombard. Furthermore, naval combat is more realisticly modeled. The above in bold is now obsolete

[Curtis Lemay]

Attached is a screenshot of the Attack Planner for the Omaha Beach assault. Note that this is the toughest beach hex, defended by a full strength regiment in fortified deployment behind a minor escarpment. Extra caution and support are called for.

Therefore, only a single regiment will assault and it’s supported by eight naval (including two BBs) and eight bomber units. Expect heavy losses and to require several assaults to dislodge it. The BBs are especially useful for dis-entrenching, due to their large shell-weight.

[Curtis Lemay]

Attached is a screenshot of the Attack Planner for the Gold/Juno Beach assault. This is the only beach hex that can be attacked from more than one sea hex. It’s not that heavily defended. And the Commonwealth have these powerful armored brigades. This beach could fall the first round.

To facilitate that, two armored brigades and an armored recon battalion are assigned to the assault. They’re supported by twelve naval units (including two BBs and a Monitor) and three air units. Again, an artillery unit has been moved into range and set to Tactical Reserve. It will support indirectly.

[Curtis Lemay]

Attached is a screenshot of the Attack Planner for the Sword Beach assault. This is the lightest defended beach of the four.

I’ll use the available armored brigade supported by five naval units (one BB) and four air units.

[Curtis Lemay]

Attached is a screenshot of the results of the first attack phase. It’s not the best I could have hoped for, but it’s pretty good. Note that the defenders of Utah Beach have been destroyed; the Pointe du Hoc defenders have held up the rangers; incredibly the Omaha Beach defenders have been pushed southeast and the beach secured by the lone assault regiment(!); the Gold/Juno Beach defenders were destroyed and the beach secured; and the Sword Beach defenders have been pushed out to the south, except for a dis-entrenched coastal gun unit. Unfortunately, one of the attacks (probably the Sword Beach attack) lasted two combat rounds so I only have 80% of the turn left. Oh well.

Note that the BTS system enhancement to TOAW would have meant that only that one combat round would have been expended, and one combat would have had a Battlefield Timestamp instead.

Note the four newly revealed artillery units. We’ll have to deal with them as soon as we can.

[Curtis Lemay]

Attached is a screenshot of the exploitation of the first attack results. Note that a unit was forced across enemy ZOCs into the vacated Utah Beach hex to ensure that no German units retreat into it (which would require it to be retaken). Otherwise, exploitation of the Utah Beach victory will wait until the hex north of it can be cleared, because of those ZOCs. Similarly, the survival of the Pointe du Hoc unit’s ZOC prevents the exploitation of the Omaha Beach victory. But I did push an HQ into it, since it won’t be used to attack so it doesn’t need the MPs it costs to get it there. But the Gold/Juno Beach victory has been thoroughly exploited and is now filled with the best assault units. The last Sword defender has been destroyed in an RBC. Then that victory has been similarly exploited too. The vacated space left by those exploiting units has been filled with artillery units that have then been placed in Tactical Reserve mode. Before moving combat units into those hexes, HQs were moved in ahead of them to lower traffic costs. Two-hex range naval units that are out of range of any defenders have been repositioned. This is part of what I meant by “sound marshalling of all resources” back at the start. Move the best units forward. Keep your support units well placed. Don’t waste MPs.

Since some units have now moved, from now on, we have to be very careful about assigning units to assaults. We have to be sure that the units we add to attacks are not late. After all this movement, that will not be simple to determine. The Attack Planning Dialog can help, but I’m not willing to rely on it entirely. As an extra precaution, I always calculate the ratio of the unit’s remaining MPs to its initial MPs. If the resulting fraction is smaller than the fraction of the turn remaining, I don’t use it in an attack that round. This (coupled with the use of Limit Losses) is what I meant by “sound round management” back at the start. There is never any excuse to mistakenly use a late unit in an attack.

None of the exploiting units (even the units that only advanced-after-combat) meet that requirement. So only the Utah Beach and Ranger forces can assault this next round. But we can still use the unmoved naval and air units to bombard. Note the two stacks with the crosshairs on them. They will be bombarded by the naval units with greater than two hex range. Naval units with only two-hex ranges would be subject to counterbattery fire from the targeted artillery units, so avoid using those if the target has any artillery in it (the longer ranged units tend to be the ones with the larger shell-weights, too). Note that bombarding units should be set to “Minimize Losses” so they only expend one combat round in that bombardment. My hope is that the artillery (and other) units can be knocked out of support mode by those bombardments. This is what I meant by “sound suppression of enemy defenses” back at the start. Dug-in, supported defenders are much stronger than dis-entrenched, unsupported ones.

Due to the new BTS system, the underlined advice is now probably overkill. I no longer make such calculations.

[Curtis Lemay]

Attached is a screenshot of the Attack Planner for the second Utah Beach assault. The same, now weaker, armored battalion, coupled with a fresh infantry regiment will assault, supported by thirteen naval units and three artillery regiments. We now know for certain just how well supported this defense is.

[Curtis Lemay]

Attached is a screenshot of the Attack Planner for the second Pointe du Hoc assault. The same two ranger units will assault, supported by two naval units. Two (just-moved) artillery regiments provide indirect support.

[Curtis Lemay]

Attached is a screenshot of the Attack Planner for the bombardment of hex 38,47. Only the four naval units (all set to minimize losses and all four BBs) will participate.

[Curtis Lemay]

Attached is a screenshot of the Attack Planner for the bombardment of hex 39,48. Only the six naval units and the bomber squadron will participate. But they include two BBs and a Monitor.

Note that the one bomber squadron here is all the “Combat Support” deployed air units that remained out of reorganization after the first round. But all in-range German planes were knocked out too. While the German AS figure remained high, I knew it was all located out of range in the off-map areas.

[Curtis Lemay]

Attached is a screenshot of the results of the second attack phase. Note that the artillery units (as well as other units) in the bombarded hexes have indeed been knocked out of entrenched (& therefore support) mode. The Utah Beach defenders have been only partly destroyed but the Pointe du Hoc defense has finally been eliminated. Note that only one round has been used this time, leaving 70% of the turn remaining. The artillery units that were still at sea and used in the Utah Beach attack are now embarked – and have thus lost all remaining MPs. Thus, using them in that fashion was a mistake. Oh well.

[Curtis Lemay]

Attached is a screenshot of the exploitation of the second attack results. The Pointe du Hoc victory finally allows exploitation of the Omaha Beach victory. Both of those hexes are now filled with the best available units and the space vacated by them have been filled with artillery units set to Tactical Reserve. The one unit that advanced into the Omaha Beach hex last phase can now be used in an attack, as can three of the units that exploited the Gold/Juno and Sword victories. The Utah Beach defense must be assaulted one more time. Note that the planned attacks don’t use any extra combat phases due to late units as shown in the info panel. (I still do the calculation thing I prescribed earlier, though).

[Curtis Lemay]

Attached is a screenshot of the Attack Planner for the third Utah Beach attack. Again, a fresh infantry regiment is employed along with the dwindling armor battalion. They are supported by thirteen naval units and one artillery regiment. The two previously embarked artillery units can only be set to indirect support now.

[Curtis Lemay]

Attached is a screenshot of the Attack Planner for the first Bayeux attack. The decimated regiment that advanced into the Omaha Beach victory is the only unit that can so attack at this time. Don’t expect it to survive. It’s supported by five naval units and three artillery regiments on indirect support. Once again, the hope is that the attack will knock the defenders out of entrenched mode. I could have just bombarded without sacrificing the poor infantry regiment but the power of the artillery bombardment is greatly increased by inclusion of the assaulting unit.

Note that the new Assault Ratio Rules make the rationale for including the weak infantry unit in this attack a bad idea. It would be very unlikely to gain the artillery bonus.

[Curtis Lemay]

Attached is a screenshot of the Attack Planner for the assault on hex 38,47. Only two non-late units are available and we want to attack another hex with the other one, so just the armor brigade is assigned here. It’s supported by three naval units and two artillery brigades.

[Curtis Lemay]

Attached is a screenshot of the Attack Planner for the attack on hex 39,48. The other non-late unit in the last hex is used. It is supported by ten naval units and one artillery brigade.

[Curtis Lemay]

Attached is a screenshot of the Attack Planner for the attack on hex 40,48. One non-late unit in the Sword Beach hex is assigned and supported by five naval units. I don’t remember which attack got the support of the air unit.