Rommel Juno Beach Game 2

For the second game I took the Germans and Andy had the Canadians. I thought I would see how well forming a thin line right across the table worked with the 716th Infantry while keeping the 352nd Infantry back to defend the furthest objectives until the 21st Panzer Division arrived:

Andy immediately attacked the defending Germans pretty much along the line but they held on:

A few gaps appear in the German lines but they are holding on well and denying the Canadians the important objective towns:

Having caused considerable delays the Germans consolidate what is left of the 716th in the three towns:

The first elements of the 21st Panzer Division arrive:

Only a couple of units remain of the 716th now, desperately holding on to the town. While the 716th has not inflicted much damage on the Canadians they have eaten up both time and Canadian operations:

The second Canadian wave arrives on the beaches. With no opposition left to delay them they will be able to move up quickly with road movement:

The Germans start to strengthen their defensive line around the last two Canadian objectives. They need to hold both to win:

The initial wave of Canadians pushes on but are somewhat spread out and disorganised:

The rest of the 21st Panzer Division arrives:

The 'Longest Day' is coming to a close as the Canadians prepare to assault the final objective they need:

Vicious fighting follows in which both sides take losses. The Germans successfully rotate the forces holding the objective to maintain control of it:

Night falls with the German's just hanging on for victory:

So all in all a near-run thing with Andy almost managing to snatch victory at the last moment.

In both games the Canadians took the same approach of trying to push forwards as fast as possible.

The first game where Andy concentrated the 716th Infantry showed the advantages of that, they remained in play largely, forced the Canadians to use troops to screen them and would have made it harder to move up the second wave of Canadians. However, they didn't delay the first wave Canadians at all and allowed them to quickly capture a lot of the objectives.

The second game where I spread the 716th out to form a screen delayed the first wave Canadians a lot more and kept them from capturing five towns until well into the day. The cost for this delaying action was that they were totally spent as a fighting force so Andy didn't have to commit any units to screening them and they didn't delay the Canadian second wave at all.

So, positives and negatives to each German defensive approach. The counter-attack by the 352nd Infantry in the first game was pretty disastrous though, they really need to be held back to defend objectives until the 25th Panzer arrives.

It was a well-balanced scenario and one we may well play again in the future.