12th SS campaign

[Rokko]

Wednesday, June 7th 1944, 1440hrs.

Untersturmführer Porsch and his platoon of four tanks of 5th Company are just outside of the village of Franqueville, ready to reconnoiter ahead towards Authie, waiting for the rest of Kampfgruppe Meyer to arrive. A reinforced Grenadier batallion supported by the tanks of 5th Company will counter-attack and clear Authie of Canadian forces. Enemy strength unknown, but tanks and carriers have been spotted moving about from the regimental headquarters.

[Rastamon]

Excellent. Looking forward to this one.

[Erwin]

Yes, indeed. (And we have all the SS camo outfit mods thanks to BJ.)

[Rokko]

In the moment I'm still mostly doing research, flowcharts, polishing the main map etc.

I have pretty good source material on the 12th SS, but not so much for the Brits and Canadians. So any input of sources would be highly appreciated. Especially as to what Allied units were in action or available on June 7 until let's say June 9th. I seriously doubt the regimental Kampfgruppe Meyer had any chance of breaking through to the beaches, but I'd somewhat like to include this as a (possible) campaign path, so I need to know which Allied units would have stood in KG Meyer's way.

I definately plan on recreating the historical actions and then go with fictional scenarios of KG Meye pushing further than they actually did (if the player's success allows it and if he chooses to do so).

[Lille Fiskerby]

Hi Rokko

This looks fantastic, I have some info on 2nd armoured canadian brigade :

OOB 06-06-1944

http://niehorster.orbat.com/017_britain/44_org/armoured%20brigs/ab_02.html

Tank strength and model 06-06-1944

http://niehorster.orbat.com/017_britain/44-06-06_Neptune/Land/z_tanks_44-06-22_21AG.html

Hope it can be useful for you.

LF

[Placebo]

sounds like a great campaign idea, make sure you let everyone know when its out

[vonRocko]

Thanks Rokko, it is good to see someone making a campaign again. For some reason it stopped a long time ago.

[Steiner14]

:cool:

Could be useful:

How to attack a village with infantry and tanks (German):

http://youtu.be/ytO_TJ03OjA

[baron Jacquinot]

I pray for Rokko that he will finish this campaign!

[Sgt Joch]

I have Terry Copp's "Fields of Fire" at home which deals with Canadian forces in normandy. There is a good chunk on the battles of june 7-9th since 3rd. Can. Div. did most of the fighting against 12th SS. I can probably get you a list of the canadian units involved.

[Lille Fiskerby]

Here are homepage regarding 3rd Canadian ID and there early battles after

landing in Normandy :

http://warchronicle.com/canadian_armoured/regimentals_wwii/firsthussars_normandypt2.htm

[baron Jacquinot]

[Rokko]

Thank you all. All input is appreciated and every bit of information is evaluated.

[Rokko]

Found a good map, might interest others as well.

So KG Meyer had 3 Infantry Brigades and at least on Armoured Regiment in front of them. The 8th and 9th Canadian and the 9th British Brigade.

Their composition:

8th Cdn:

- The Queen's Own Rifles of Canada

- Le Régiment de la Chaudière

- The North Shore (New Brunswick) Regiment

9th Cdn:

- The Highland Light Infantry of Canada

- The Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders

- The North Nova Scotia Highlanders

9th Brit:

- 2nd/The Lincolnshire Regiment

- 1st/The King's Own Scottish Borderers

- 2nd/The Royal Ulster Rifles

[JonS]

The Victory Campaign (Canadian Official history):

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/Canada/CA/Victory/index.html

PDF here:

http://www.cmp-cpm.forces.gc.ca/dhh-dhp/his/oh-ho/index-eng.asp

CMHQ reports (see, for example, No.131):

http://www.cmp-cpm.forces.gc.ca/dhh-dhp/his/oh-ho/index-eng.asp

AHQ reports (see for eample No.50)

http://www.cmp-cpm.forces.gc.ca/dhh-dhp/his/rep-rap/ahqr-rqga-eng.asp

Agree with Joch about 'Fields of Fire' - its a good book.

The Canadian Military history journal has a lot of good articles, but you'll need to do some rummaging to find the ones that are relevant to you:

http://www.canadianmilitaryhistory.ca/category/the-journal-cmh/

[Rokko]

Thanks a bunch. The map I posted is actually from The Victory Campaign, but I haven't read it yet

Gonna check out Fields of Fire some day, my book budget for this already used up because I ordered two volumes from Military Press on the organization of I. SS-Panzerkorps.

I am a little in doubt right now. There's no way KG Meyer could have advanced much further than they did in reality with three Allied infantry Brigades in front of them. Could have made for some interesting battles like relieving the Douvres Radar station or even reaching the beaches, but that is just too much a stretch of imagination, unless I decided not to stick to close to reality for this, which is not really how I want to do things.

[baron Jacquinot]

"Bloody Buron" by J. Allen Snowie - pdf book about fighting for Buron 8 July 1944, you can download book from site - http://cambridgecitizen.ca/61795/

[baron Jacquinot]

Maps from this book -

[baron Jacquinot]

I cut Buron town from map and add anti-tank trench like on photo, have somebody OOB for both sides on 8 July?

[Sgt Joch]

Found a good map, might interest others as well.

So KG Meyer had 3 Infantry Brigades and at least on Armoured Regiment in front of them. The 8th and 9th Canadian and the 9th British Brigade.

Their composition:

8th Cdn:

- The Queen's Own Rifles of Canada

- Le Régiment de la Chaudière

- The North Shore (New Brunswick) Regiment

9th Cdn:

- The Highland Light Infantry of Canada

- The Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders

- The North Nova Scotia Highlanders

9th Brit:

- 2nd/The Lincolnshire Regiment

- 1st/The King's Own Scottish Borderers

- 2nd/The Royal Ulster Rifles

nice find.

The 9th Cdn was the one caught on the march on june 7th and suffered the most casualties.

The 7th Cdn. had time to setup defensive positions around Norrey and Putot and stop the later German attack.

[Sgt Joch]

Thanks a bunch. The map I posted is actually from The Victory Campaign, but I haven't read it yet

Gonna check out Fields of Fire some day, my book budget for this already used up because I ordered two volumes from Military Press on the organization of I. SS-Panzerkorps.

I am a little in doubt right now. There's no way KG Meyer could have advanced much further than they did in reality with three Allied infantry Brigades in front of them. Could have made for some interesting battles like relieving the Douvres Radar station or even reaching the beaches, but that is just too much a stretch of imagination, unless I decided not to stick to close to reality for this, which is not really how I want to do things.

fields of fire is available on google books. good to use as a reference. Not much info on the brits though.

http://books.google.ca/books?id=FD8dRw8SLyIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=fields+of+fire&hl=en&sa=X&ei=qz5DUZNBiuPgA-b8gPgJ&ved=0CD8Q6AEwAw

Baron Jacquinot, it also discusses the Cdn. forces involved in the attack on july 8th. The Highland Light Infantry of 9th Cdn. had the task to clear Buron itself. This is discussed around pp. 103-104.

[JasonC]

9th British brigade was meant to attack on the Canadian left that day, but it got hung up well to the north and wasn't up with the Canadians, or far enough forward to engage 12SS forces.

They were fighting against 21st Panzer elements, including elements of the 200 Pz Jgr (which had 88 PAK). They also had the Douvre radar station fortified area behind them, and it was still alive and kicking with flanking fire etc. It is not correct to present 12SS elements as fighting those as well as the Canadians. Yes there was a British brigade assigned that part of the frontage in the previous day's plans - just as that frontage was also assigned to 21st Panzer in the German side plans, before 12SS even arrived. But they did not actually make contact with each other on the 7th. The Brits took flanking fire from Douvre, long range heavy AT fire from 200 Pz Jgr, and fought elements of 21st Panzer and remnants from the static infantry formations on the beach, largely destroyed on D-Day. That's it.

As for other German forces in the area, on the Canadian portion of the front, they included a few batteries of those 88 PAK (scattered), elements of the static infantry in Buron village (not terribly effective, but they were the original defenders when the Canadians took the place), and SPW mounted elements of 21st Panzer, with some 150mm Schlepper SPA attached.

The 12SS collision was with a German reserve formation backing up that thin screen.

The Canadians punched into the thin screen of non 12SS forces, penetrated it, but were strung out along the line of advance in the process, and previously engaged.

That was their state at the time the German reserve formation from 12SS entered the fighting.

The Canadians were not advancing onto ground held by 12SS. Formation to formation, the fight was a meeting engagement, effectively. Or, the Canadians attacked other Germans, and 12SS counterattack them.

FWIW...

[Rokko]

Well according to my information 2nd Batallion/The Royal Ulster Regiment of 9th British Brigade was moving into Cambes-en-Plaine Nort-East of Saint-Contest about the same time Waldmüller's I. Btl. was attacking it. Historically that assault failed, but apparently 12th SS later did get into Cambes and was doing some night-infiltrations of the Cambes Wood further to the North (Le Mesnil if I'm not mistaken).

The 7th Cdn Bde. was facing Mohnke's 26th Regiment exclusively and is thus irrelevant to what I try to portray.

Edit

I've downloaded Fields of Fire and Bloody Buron now. The maps of the Buron defenses are great! I hope noob reads here as well

I also have a fairly accurate picture now of which Allied batallions stood were on June 7th and can now put together a more realistic campaign sequence I think. Would have been nice to see the beaches or the Douvres radarstation, but Allied counter-attacks and some small nighttime infiltrations will have to do

[kensal]

I think it is clear that 12SS would never have been able to punch through to the beaches by itself. A successful German counterattack to the beaches on 7-8 June would have required at least two full strength panzer divisions with sufficient infantry divisions in support to follow up and hold captured ground. Even then it would have been unlikely given the number of British armoured brigades, AT regiments, air and artillery assets available. 7th Armoured Division also due to arrive imminently. As it was the Germans were never able to get the two panzer divisions in reserve in order to organise a realistic counterattack.

[Rokko]

Agreed. To be honest, the workload would have been way too much to finish in a reasonable time anyways. Essentially it would have required two more maps the size of the one I've already made. And that already took an effin' long time to make. The I decided to go now requires only a few more and much smaller maps. Also allows for some smaller actions, instead of all batallion-sized battles.