Falaise Gap - Part II

Rhys provided all the forces, as he had just enough to pretty well much do the whole lot by himself.  Getting information on the Allies was easy enough, but not so for the Germans, since these were for the most part a rag-tag collection of "units" in retreat, with even their commanders having little idea at the time how many men or pieces of equipment they had, and in case, many of them didn't live to fill out any sort of post-battle report...

The Allies on the east half of the table, who would be commanded on the day by Paul Reynolds, amounted to 688 points under Keith McNelly's scenario system, not counting the 1/6 chance each turn of receiving air support.  We omitted one of the Polish battalions that in real-life was defending Chambois, the (Polish) 10th Mounted Rifles, partly because we figured that something must have been guarding the area to the south, which we were not portraying, but mostly because we couldn't figure out how we could possibly fit four battalions into such a small area on the table!

Above: Cromwell IVs of the 10th Mounted rifles in action near Falaise (photo taken from here).  Note how open the ground is here in comparison with what the were fighting over a month before in the campaign. It must be said that Cromwell IVs are not exactly the most capable of weapons systems in Spearhead, so their absence from the table was not sorely missed...

The Poles around Coudehard and on Mont Ormel amounted to 778 points; again, not counting the 1/6 chance each turn of that they would receive air support (so it was potentially possible to have more than one air model on table at a time). We let them deploy just a little bit further south than they were in real life, because we didn't have quite enough of the northern end of the hill modelled on our table as it turned out.  These would be commanded by Rhys on the day.

Above: the view as it is now from the war memorial and museum on Mont Ormel, looking west toward the Dives. Public domain image by Jacques Wiacek.

The Germans attacking Mont Ormel from the east and north totalled 750 points, but were split into two waves, with the northern force (9th SS Panzer) only starting to arrive from the 8th turn, and thus would have a harder job of it than their points count would initially suggest.  These would be commanded by Peter Page on the day. Also taking on the Poles here, attacking from the west, were 396 points of veteran paratroopers and regular infantry; these were commanded by Jon Palmer, whom I had never met before; he turned up with a box of his gear for us to have a look at, and when he opened it it, I saw the largest collection of Russian WW2 lead I have ever seen - an entire 1:300th Tank Brigade, modelled at 1:1 scale! That would equate to a complete Tank Army at Spearhead scale...

Above are shown the on-table positions of the various "battalion" HQs, or, for off-table ones, their entry points: yellow for Axis and red for Allied, along with their turn of entry for those starting off-table.  I say "battalion" in quotes, because for the Germans, in many cases these represented the remnants of entire divisions, or in some cases, two divisions...

Play started at 10 am "real life", since Peter and Paul had to drive up from Wellington, representing daybreak, 20 August 1944.  After about half an hour going through the scenario and any little rules (e.g. air support, lack of counter battery assets, and low fuel stocks) we started the first turn, with Peter's 2nd SS getting immediately up and personal with the Strzelcy podhalańscy (Podhale Rifles) on the southeastern slopes of Mont Ormel. Peter was no doubt hoping to avoid this:

Above: the aftermath of the German assaults on Mont Ormel (public domain image from the Polish Ministry of Information).