Normandy '44 AAR

[CountryBoy]

Turn 66. 14:00 12 June 1944. Visibility is 3kms. Highlighted units are disrupted units.

So moving on again a few hours, to the early afternoon of the 12th of June.

Starting in the far eastern edge of the map as usual, looking at the are east of Caen. The only action here is still around the village of Troan, where Axis and Allies continue to hammer each other. German troops are both inferior and outnumbered, but fortunately there is no major Allied effort here.



Moving a little bit to the west, and looking at the area around Caen itself. It seems like the Canadians and the Brits have gone to sleep here, with no pressure whatsoever besides artillery. The 21st Panzer (east of the 12th SS) and 12th SS are on holiday duty here.



Moving further west again, and looking at the area south of Bayeux. Again, very little change here, despite a good number of Allied troops. The terrain is not great for defence, being mainly fields, so I am happy that the Allies are not making an effort here.



Moving further west again, and the situation is not looking too good here. Three US divisions are pushing hard here in the fields south of Omaha Beach. The problem from a German perspective is the low quality defenders: a few paratroopers and the 77th and 352nd Infantry Divisions, whom are both morale C and worse. I had moved a few armored units of Panzer Lehr here a while ago, which appears to have scared off the US tanks for a while, but that may not last. Apologies for the misspelling of 'fallschirmjager'.



Again, moving further west and this is the critical sector, south of Carentan. As I had feared, the Allies are pushing due west and south-west very strongly and I don't have much to stop them. They have taken Hill 30 and many of my units are disrupted. An option was to shift 17th SS Pzgr Division south-east in order to cover this area, however I have decided to go beyond that and retreat further down the Cherbourg peninsula in order to straighten my lines and negate the Allied push across the base of the peninsula. This will be clear in the screenshot after this one.



So looking at a zoomed out shot of the Cherbourg peninsula and you can see the new plan. Reluctantly, I have given up the defensive line I was building north of la Haye du Puits and have decided to focus on a new defensive line further south, with its left flank anchored on the village of Lessay and running due east to St Jean De Daye.

Although I am giving up some good defensive territory, I think this is my only option to avoid being cut off on the peninsula. My main goal is to keep the army intact as long as possible and this area is probably where I am most vulnerable (as in real life), so I need to do what I can. It will be tricky to conduct another long distance withdrawal down the peninsula, but hopefully I can get everyone out unscathed.

The green lines show my intended line of withdrawal to the new (second) line of defence.



A look at the jump map and you can see the movement on the Cherbourg peninsula. I have also highlighted the 2nd Panzer Division in the green circle, which are recent reinforcements. At this stage I'm still undecided about where to deploy them and am staging them around St Lo. I'm leaning to moving them to the far western side of my new defensive line on the Cherbourg peninsula as I think I can't rely on the 17th SS Pzgr Division to keep such a large area under control.



And finally, as usual, the VP situation. Still around a 6,000 differential in men losses between Allies and Axis.



Overall, I think things are going ok. I have given up some ground but I am focused on avoiding the destruction of any units and any type of Operation Cobra outbreak. I may run out of hexes to retreat from before we run out of turns however! As an aside, it has occurred to me that this scenario would really benefit from timed objectives, where Germany could be rewarded for holding certain areas for a certain amount of time. Likewise the Allies can be rewarded for aggressive action to capture certain areas. I understand the next WDS update may allow this but I guess the scenario will also have to be reworked to include this.