Announcing "OPERATION TONGA - EAST OF THE ORNE" - a work in progress

[WimO]

COMPLETED MASTER MAPS
Tonga Centre: 4160 m x 3168 m. West to east it stretches from Blainville-sur-Orne to le Lieu Haras and north to south from 12th Para Battalion's RV in the quarry to Blainville-sur-Orne. This is an updated version of my earlier master map for Operation Coup de Main with the addition of the water tower and corrected commercial building near the chateau.

Tonga NE: 3968 m x 4000 m. West to east it stretches from the Orne River to le Bas de Breville and north to south from le Bas de Breville to Herouvillette.

Tonga SE: 6000 m x 3008 m. West to east it stretches from the Canal de Caen to the Bois de Bavent ridge and north to south from Le Bas de Ranville to Ste. Honorine le Chardronette.

Tonga Triangle: 1808 m x 1808 m. A nearly 2km square stretching southeast from the junction of the road from Le Mesnil with the road from Escoville to Troarn.

The first three maps come in four variations each; vanilla without flavor objects, vanilla with vanilla flavor objects, modded buildings without flavor objects and modded buildings with modded flavor objects. The purpose of the 'no flavor objects' variants is so player can cut the maps into smaller sections without a flavor objects disastrous mixup resulting.

COMPLETED SCENARIOS
(But not yet intensively play-tested or final proof-read)

0105 Hours: T-1201 First Encounters: 12th Para. An easy scenario on a medium map.
0150 Hours: T-1301 Clearing Ranville: 13th Para. An easy scenario on a big map.
0220 Hours: T-1302 Skirmish at Herouvillette: 13th Para. Small tricky scenario.
0230 Hours: T-801 Road to Troarn: 8th Para. A small encounter.
0230 Hours: T-1202 Securing Le Bas de Ranville: 12th Para. An easy scenario on a big map.
0530 Hours: T-1303 Patrol Herouvillette: 13th Para. Small and tricky.
0630 Hours: T-802 Ambush at the Triangle: 8th Para. Easy scenario on a medium map.
0945 Hours: T-1304 Ranville Erupts: 13th Para. Big but uncomplicated.
0945 Hours: T-1304 Ranville Erupts: 13th Para. A variant interpretation. More challenging.
1030 Hours: T-1203 Sim's Hedge: 12th Para. Small but challenging.

CURRENTLY A WORK IN PROGRESS
1200 Hours: T-1204 Out of Longueval: 12th Para.

PLANNED PROBABLE

1220 Hours: T1305 No time for Lunch

1510 Hours: T1306 Blast, not again!

2200 Hours: T-1205 Evening Salute (title tentative)

PLANNED MAYBE
T-1206 Jerry on the DZ/LZ N
T-1207 Closing the Breville Gap

MAYBE REMOTELY
Actions of 9th Para and SSB around Amfreville & Le Plein
Actions of 9th Para around Breville Les Monts & Chateau St. Come
Action of Black Watch around Breville Les Monts
Canadians at the misnamed "Brickworks" (little or no information)

NOT INCLUDED
Merville Battery - already done by Rocketman
Any actions outside of my master maps.

NOT EVERYONE'S CUP OF TEA

Unfortunately, most of the actions during Operation Tonga were defensive and therefore static in nature. Most but not all.  Most of the Bristish and Canadian earlier attacks met only light German resistance. The exceptions were the Merville battery, the action to close the Breville gap and the disastrous attack by the Black Watch.

GENERAL PLAN
These scenarios will be interwoven with my scenarios from my Operation Coup de Main campaign to create a time-line base linear recreation or reliving of the events of Operation Tonga from 6 through 10 June 1944. I expect that in August I will be seeking single-player play testers.

RELEASE DATE
Year end 2024.
Nothing will be released until I am satisfied that everything I want to do is done and done well or if I burn out. (Assuming my trickey ticker doesn't give out first).

[Vacillator]

Excellent Wim, looking forward to it.

[JM Stuff]

Job worthy, of merit of a "British" Icon (Battle Pack) for @WimO, like @Ithikial_AU, that we can now enjoy of our screen... 

[Vergeltungswaffe]

So glad the WimO factory has retooled and is back in production.

[Aragorn2002]

Hear, hear!

[rocketman]

@WimO If you consider doing "Actions of 9th Para around Breville Les Monts & Chateau St. Come" I started a project years ago and have some research (allied troop deployment etc) to share and a preliminary map (topo done and roads, some terrain features, and the Chateau layout) and can probably scan parts of the book "The Day the Devil's Dropped In". Drop me a PM and let me know.

[Erwin]

This looks like fun.  Thanks WimO.

Edited Thursday at 02:36 PM by Erwin

[PEB14]

17 hours ago, WimO said:

Unfortunately, most of the actions during Operation Tonga were defensive and therefore static in nature. Most but not all.  Most of the Bristish and Canadian earlier attacks met only light German resistance. The exceptions were the Merville battery, the action to close the Breville gap and the disastrous attack by the Black Watch.

Did you ever consider a GERMAN campaign designed around Operation Tonga? If the British side is inherently static, hence the German side is not!

If I'm not mistaken, those fightings involved the 21 PzDiv and its cool "Frankenstein" AFVs...

[WimO]

@rocketman "The Day the Devil's Dropped In" is one of my sources. I have a Kindle edition. Breville Les Monts and Chateau St. Come are within the bounds of my Tonga NE master map. However, in the interest of straightening saw tooth roads and hedges, I do not always use cut-outs from my master maps to create associated scenarios, so I would definitely be interested in having a peek at your map.

[WimO]

@PEB14 At the moment I am starting with only single-player Allied scenarios with the understanding that these are mostly, but not all, static and a little boring. I am creating them to 'relive' the Tonga experience. After the Allied scenarios are completed I will indeed be refocusing on the German side with a number of German single-player scenarios. I could have created only the 'attack' scenarios for both sides but I really wanted to relive all the events as much as possible. 

[Vacillator]

14 hours ago, JM Stuff said:

Job worthy, of merit of a "British" Icon (Battle Pack)

Best not go there again.

A Battle Pack (like Utah) is an official BFC release, while a 'fan-made' *ahem* collection such as Mr.X's fine Red Thunder work should be called something else to avoid confusion .

[WimO]

@PEB14 Both in my earlier "Operation Coup de Main" campaign and the current work-in-progress "Operation Tonga - East of the Orne" battles collection, the 21.Panzer-Division's "Frankenstein" vehicles play a prominent role in the first 24 hours both on-map and off-map.

[WimO]

WISH LIST

1. I wish ... Battlefront would add the following vehicle ... British Tetrrark Light Tank ... airlanded during operation Tonga. 

2. I wish ... someone would further modify the Horsa mod so that the Horsa can be seen to be a Horsa at long range and not revert to a British lorry ("truck"). Right now if I populate landing zone DZ/LZ 'N' with the mod, it will look like dozens of trucks at long range (silly) and only look like Horsas at close range.

[JM Stuff]

6 hours ago, Vacillator said:

Best not go there again.

A Battle Pack (like Utah) is an official BFC release, while a 'fan-made' *ahem* collection such as Mr.X's fine Red Thunder work should be called something else to avoid confusion .

agree I m out !

[jtsjc1]

21 hours ago, WimO said:

@rocketman "The Day the Devil's Dropped In" is one of my sources. I have a Kindle edition. Breville Les Monts and Chateau St. Come are within the bounds of my Tonga NE master map. However, in the interest of straightening saw tooth roads and hedges, I do not always use cut-outs from my master maps to create associated scenarios, so I would definitely be interested in having a peek at your map.

Looks great! I have that book myself and haven't gotten to it yet. Looking forward to seeing your work.