First Charge - The Matrix Games version of West Front

Cintheaux, 18 km S of Caen, France (Best played H2H) On beginning of August Montgomery developed another plan to cut German withdrawal routes towards Seine River and give a hand to Patton's 3rd Army swinging around left wing of German front. Execution of the Operation "Totalise" was given to the Canadian II Corps. Gen Simmonds intended to conduct operation in two phases. First, two infantry divisions were to break front positions and open path for the armored units. Unfortunatelly, night assault on 7/8 August barely scratched German defenses. In that situation Gen Simmonds ordered his "armored fist": 4th Canadian and 1st Polish Divisions, to strike along the road 158 and seize Falaise. On the other side of the barricade German 12 SS Panzer Division "Hitlerjugend" with some infantry dug in and waited. Many of Poles from 1st Division fought against Germans in 1939 and 1940 but panzer tactics changed a lot from that time. Col Majewski's 10th Arm'd Cav Bde advancing in first echelon was about to check how much! But lack of experience was not the only difficulty he had to struggle with. Firstly, during the night some infantry regiments lost their way and were unable to support Polish tankers. Secondly, Allied bombers which were to soften German defenses dropped some of their load on advancing columns, just before the attack started. Moreover, left wing of the advance was still not screaned by infantry. To make things worse Majewski did not know that Kurt Mayer seeing confusion coused by air attack found his chance to break another Allied operation and ordered his panzers to advance toward charging Poles.