Ukraine War 2022 - 15mm Wargame Video
Guns Fall Silent on Omaha - It Is Finished.
Turn Twenty, and the game overall, is finally complete.
At twelve minutes a turn, this puts us at 240 minutes after H-Hour, four full hours.
In all, this game took seven days, playing at least 3-4 hours a day. So how did it go?
Well, as students of the battle will tell you, the Americans are already kind of running away with it. We’ll get into the “how and why” of it later, but for now let’s see how this game finally burns down to a conclusion of our re-creation of D-Day on “Bloody Omaha.”
So the game is finally done. Yeah, the Americans turned out to be a little OP. After Turn 6 or 7 it was really a steamroller, with the Germans more or less helpless. While this happened historically, if didn’t happen until MUCH later in the day. I’m not saying that games always have to go as history prescribes, but clearly too much of the American landing plan went like clockwork here, and as a result the Germans never stood a chance. Had this been a live game, the German player would have spent the last 16 hours of gameplay as a patient speed bump only hoping to flatten a few tires as he was ruthlessly run over.
This was a reason I really didn’t want to run this game live. There is no point system for Panzer Leader. Followers of the game know there is just no way the system has room for that. Designing scenarios is about experience, research, and gut feelings. Needless to say, it is an inexact science. In small or medium sized games, a 5% “wobble” is no big deal, one or two dice rolls can sort that out. But in a game this gigantic (seven days, at least 3-4 hours a day), even a 5% wobble can quickly get out of control.
A detailed breakdown of American game losses by beach assault zones:
- Charlie / Dog Green: 24 counters (240 killed, 480 wounded)
- Dog White: 14 counters (140 killed, 280 wounded)
- Dog Red: 14 counters (140 killed, 280 wounded)
- East Green: 12 counters (120 killed, 240 wounded)
- Easy Red: 24 counters (240 killed, 480 wounded)
- Fox Green / Fox Red: 19 counters (190 killed, 380 wounded)
Total: 107 counters (1,070 killed, 2,140 wounded, 3,210 total casualties)
This is actually a little lower than the historical result. Yes, most sources will cite “about 2,000 American casualties on Omaha” – that is complete horsesh*t, due in part mostly to American GRUs (Graves Registration Units) use of the “Missing” category for men killed who cannot be positively identified or are not found (like all those who drowned in the Channel). The more recent and realistic figure posted by the US D-Day Historical Association (since picked up by other sources) gives 2,501 Americans killed on D-Day, with 979 in the airborne drops, 152 on Utah (including boating losses), and about 45 at Pointe do Hoc. This leaves about 1,325 on Omaha killed, with easily double that in wounded for a casualty rate on Omaha alone closer to 4,000.
As you can see, the Americans in this game suffered far less than that. AND far surpassed the historical results on the beachhead. So this game was a little tilted toward the Americans.
If we run a SECTION of this live later, we’ll stiffen the dice roll for American tanks making it ashore, delay the M-7 Priests to when they ACTUALLY landed instead of when they were PLANNED to land, and reduce the American airpower (which was very spotty in effectiveness on the day). One thing we’ll keep in the naval gunfire support. The battleship USS Texas closed to within ONE MILE to deliver point-blank fire with 14” guns, some destroyers closed to with 450 yards of the shore (insane for naval scales, the ships technically would have been ON THE TABLE about three hexes out into the water).
Still, it was a great game. I learned a lot.
If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading! We have more Panzer Leader in the works, this time with British units fighting inland in the weeks and months following the landings.
And again, if you’re ever interested in trying some of this out yourself, ping me an e-mail and I’ll add you to the weekly mailing list!
I really like the depth to which you dig for the true statistics of events that happened. It is amazing what can be found in the archives if one digs a bit. Also, thanks for sharing the higher rez pics of the battlefield. I recognize the ‘Map IX’ ‘Evening of D-Day’ from my own research that I ran over ten years ago when I first dove deep into researching D-Day. I ran across that Map and others that bore the progress of the day. Really fascinating to look through. Well done on the setup, execution, and summarizing of this ‘EVENT… Read more »
Thanks very much, @templar007 – admittedly I wish this one had gone a little tougher for the Americans … If you’ve researched the battle than you know how badly the Americans overran the historical result (in terms of distance pushed inland and size of the initial beachhead). But hey. Still a fun playtest. If anyone ever wants to play part of Omaha “live,” I now have a very detailed playtest to use as a baseline for a accurate scenario that is also fun and challenging for both sides (not always easy to do in an amphibious landing scenario). Glad you… Read more »