Operation Jubilee - Dieppe - Pls upgrade to 1.1

[LandMarine47]

Use Sicilian Architecture for sure GL88's

[LandMarine47]

This one just looks cool

[Ranger]

Thanks Thomas. We'll be lucky to have you onboard!

FYI I've just started reading Tragedy at Dieppe: Operation Jubilee by a Canadian war historian called Zuilke. I get the impression that US Rangers were formed as a direct result of their involvement at Dieppe... How cool is that?

" A new element Mountbatten introduced was the inclusion of fifty American Rangers. American interest in commando operations had led to the tall Texan, Brig Truscott, and a small team ....

Thank you. I'll also help to contribute infoz about the two flanking Commando missions and the Commando units.

Some of the U.S. Brass were highly impressed by the multiple successful raiding missions pulled off by the newly formed British Commandos. The St. Nazaire Raid in March 1942 went a long way to cementing the creation of a similar American Commando type of unit. Rangers participating in the Dieppe Raid probably helped take things to the next level logistically and organizationally.

Speaking of The St. Nazaire Raid... that was an amazing British raid to take out French dry docks. In a nut shell, the Brits disguised an old American lend/lease destroyer (USS Campbell?) to look like a German destroyer, packed it with tons of explosives (with time delay fuse) and 300 or so Commandos. They snuck up the estuary in darkness, full speed ahead, and rammed the dry dock. The Commandos jumped off (they were also dispatched from patrol boats that came along), to complete their various sabotage and security missions. The mission was costly but mostly a success... the dry docks were destroyed.

cheers,

Thomas

[GottaLove88s]

So how's it going on your end GL88's? Do you have what you need to make the buildings you need? I say you use the Building format for either Operation SeaLion or Husky and even Market Garden. Still looking how to get those tanks on the beachhead.

Hey LM,

Sorry for delays... Haven't had much time to 'play'...

I believe that I've sorted out our squads.csv now, so we will be able to drop in a complete set of 1942 units for both sides... including Ranger's commandos, of course!

Here's a taster of the Western Headland... The Chateau isn't great, but it's the only way that I can build anything vaguely spire like... The tobacco factory is there, plus the Gare Maritime, the Promenade and seafront gardens... The beach has Rommel's asparagus, rocks, dunes, and plenty of shingle, which Churchills hate, but infantry can dig into (in BA at least; I doubt the Montreal Fusiliers enjoyed that pleasure during the real assault)... Dieppe's fortified Casino is still missing, but it will go in the gap between the factory and the bunkers... You get an idea of the port and harbour in the background... I've been digging through contemporary photos of Dieppe and the best object matches are the French Objects, Sealion and Sicily (as you suggest)... pulling in bits of fortress, etc, from the Desert set... I'll zone the way I did for Caen, but on a rather larger scale, so our Dieppe will have parks, residential areas, churches, shopping boulevards and a dense forest for sneaking through...

Plenty more to do... but it will be a 64x64 with a LOT to fight for... over, under and through, lol...

[GottaLove88s]

Speaking of The St. Nazaire Raid...

Lol, ok, ok, I can take a hint Thomas... If we can make Dieppe work to our fun and satisfaction, let's have go at adapting everything that we manage to do there, for St Nazaire too...

It could be a great mission, combining the best of naval and commando tactics... And with the most evil of defences for the town, river, Wehrmacht and Kriegsmarine garrisons, and the dry dock objective...

Ultimately, I'd like to figure out how to make army/naval units work fiendishly well together, so that we can move on to building some phenomenal Pacific scenarios, integrated with a future version of Amaris' NAM...

[GottaLove88s]

PS. With Richcat's ever generous genius, we've reskinned everything that we need to provide Dieppe's 302.Infanterie Division defenders with period realistic armour support, correctly camo coloured for summer '42... The StuG has been demoted to an A, while the PzIV is now only a D... Sorry folks, but to stay accurate, the Panthers are gone, and the Puma recon had to be kicked out for a simple 8 Rad... Ready for you to take your pick Al...

[LandMarine47]

The Germans are going aganst Churchill's...... Hope they have 88's In the case we can't get tanks in LCT's what are you ganna do? I say reinforcements from Green Beach

[GottaLove88s]

Nope, sorry no 88s in Dieppe (in all of the, now pretty extensive, reading I've done so far)

But panic not Kameraden... the enemy Churchills will face their nightmares... in the sand, navigating shingle and tank traps... while under combined cliff top fire from 152mm, 105mm and 75mm arty...

[morge4]

PS. With Richcat's ever generous genius, we've reskinned everything that we need to provide Dieppe's 302.Infanterie Division defenders with period realistic armour support, correctly camo coloured for summer '42... The StuG has been demoted to an A, while the PzIV is now only a D... Sorry folks, but to stay accurate, the Panthers are gone, and the Puma recon had to be kicked out for a simple 8 Rad... Ready for you to take your pick Al...

Looking good...Never expected Panthers this early anyway ... so the PzIV's and 8 rad's are fine (about 5 each) and I'd like 3 or 4 of the AA's (10/4)? Also about a half dozen of those mobile SiG's please.

[LandMarine47]

Why not Panzer IVF? Never saw many of them in action
By the way you may need to talk to Slitherine for this. Both for certain Buildings and getting tanks to the Beachhead especially without the Donald Ducks around

[GottaLove88s]

Why not Panzer IVF? Never saw many of them in action
By the way you may need to talk to Slitherine for this. Both for certain Buildings and getting tanks to the Beachhead especially without the Donald Ducks around

IV-F1 might be possible, but I suspect they're all on the Eastern Front in summer '42, no?

[LandMarine47]

If Rommel had some in North Africa there ought to be some in France

[LandMarine47]

Thanks Thomas. We'll be lucky to have you onboard!

FYI I've just started reading Tragedy at Dieppe: Operation Jubilee by a Canadian war historian called Zuilke. I get the impression that US Rangers were formed as a direct result of their involvement at Dieppe... How cool is that?

" A new element Mountbatten introduced was the inclusion of fifty American Rangers. American interest in commando operations had led to the tall Texan, Brig Truscott, and a small team ....

Thank you. I'll also help to contribute infoz about the two flanking Commando missions and the Commando units.

Some of the U.S. Brass were highly impressed by the multiple successful raiding missions pulled off by the newly formed British Commandos. The St. Nazaire Raid in March 1942 went a long way to cementing the creation of a similar American Commando type of unit. Rangers participating in the Dieppe Raid probably helped take things to the next level logistically and organizationally.

Speaking of The St. Nazaire Raid... that was an amazing British raid to take out French dry docks. In a nut shell, the Brits disguised an old American lend/lease destroyer (USS Campbell?) to look like a German destroyer, packed it with tons of explosives (with time delay fuse) and 300 or so Commandos. They snuck up the estuary in darkness, full speed ahead, and rammed the dry dock. The Commandos jumped off (they were also dispatched from patrol boats that came along), to complete their various sabotage and security missions. The mission was costly but mostly a success... the dry docks were destroyed.

cheers,

Thomas

Make it a SP map And an SP for Dieppe wouldn't hurt

[GottaLove88s]

If Rommel had some in North Africa there ought to be some in France

I suspect Generaleutnant Haase would have agreed with you, but 302 Infanterie definitely didn't have any IV-Fs... Am checking to find out what 10th Panzer, which theoretically could have reinforced, but wasn't needed, was kitted with in August'42...

I guess North Africa and Russia were considered the key theatres?

[LandMarine47]

Probably but with all these raids up the Germans ought to have them in reserve to repel a possible invasion like a Dieppe

[morge4]

Found this for May 1940...doesn't list specific variant but I would assume D's.

1 Medium Panzer Company

Company Headquarters
3 Motorcycles
1 Car (Kfz 15/2)
1 Pz Mk II (Sd Kfz 121)
1 Pz Mk IV (Sd Kfz 161)
1 Command Pz Mk I (Sd Kfz 265)

1 Light Tank Platoon
3 Pz Mk II (Sd Kfz 121)

1 Medium Tank Platoon
4 Pz Mk IV (Sd Kfz 161)

1 Medium Tank Platoon
3 Pz Mk IV (Sd Kfz 161)

[LandMarine47]

The 10th Panzer Division was in France because they were heavily depleted on the Eastern Front so there's a good chance that Panzer IVF's.
GL88's I was thinking on the beach we should do a Omaha Beach Shingle where a impassible barrier (Sea Wall) must be destroyed by engineers. Both Infantry and Tanks may pass after a hole is blasted. If possible of course

[GottaLove88s]

Al, thanks for the heads up on Pz company kit... LM, comments noted.

Lets all think about forces balanced for our map... As the map is coming together, it's becoming increasingly obvious that Dieppe is a map for grunts, ships and arty... which if designed for a historical match would include a very few German tanks but rather more (mostly unlucky) Allied Churchills, blitz buggies (aka jeeps), Guy armoured cars and universal carriers...

[Ranger]

Based on LandMarine's comments, plus what I've seen around the web, I'm estimating Allies would go with...
-...(did they have PIATs in '42?)
- Vickers MG? What's the Brit/Canadian equivalent of a MG34?

To no one in particular...
This may be of interest to those who didn't know or were curious about the differences between LMGs and MMGs...
Otherwise this post will most likely only appeal to the extremely bored or the insomniac...

no PIATs in action in '42 (first used in Italy in '43)

What's the Brit/Canadian equivalent of a MG34?
Depending how the weapons were deployed, in '42 the Brit/Canadian "equivelant" of the MG34 would have been the Bren Gun or the Vickers MG.

Deployed as a Light Machine Gun (offensive, mobile)- Bren Equivalent of MG34.
Both the Bren Gun and MG34, when using bipod, could be carried and deployed/used by one soldier (assuming the MG34 was fitted with a drum "magazine" for the belt ammo). Both the Bren and MG34 had a crew of at least two soldiers. A gunner and an assistant gunner. The gunner carried the weapon and ammo. The assistant gunner carried ammo and spare barrels. (The MG34 also had a man-portable/light-weight tripod for use in the LMG role).
Rate of fire for Bren was about 500 rpm. Rate of fire for the MG34 (in LMG role) was 600-800 rpm.

Deployed as a Medium Machine Gun(static defensive position or "less-than-mobile"): The Vickers MG was the "equivalent" of MG34. Both were deployed with heavy 50 pound (23 kg) tripods. Both had to a minimum crew of three. The Vickers MG was a fine/reliable weapon that did its job, but it was inferior to the MG34 by most measures.
The Vickers rate of fire was about 500 rpm, while the MG 34 was 900-1000 rpm.

In terms of equipment etc, what's the primary difference between an LMG and MMG? Flexibility, portability and speed of set up. Or put another way: an LMG, is a machine gun, that, once loaded, can be brought into action immediately, it doesn't need to be set-up, it can fired from just about any position/terrain, and is easily moved and transported by a single soldier .. A MMG is a machine gun "system" that must be set up on a big honking bulky 50 lb tripod. The tripod needs to be set up on a ground that's as level as the crew can make it. This and setting up the tripod takes precious seconds/minutes to unpack/set-up/break-down before it can be brought into action or moved to a new position. An MMG system also requires three soldiers to move and transport it.

Pros and cons of LMG and MMG?
LMG Pros: LMG is extremely portable, quickly brought into action, and very flexible. (Edge Bren)
LMG Cons: The relatively unstable firing platform (bipod/hip) negatively impacts accuracy, control of automatic fire, and effectiveness of suppressing fire. Marksmanship skills directly impact accuracy and effectiveness of an LMG. (Edge Bren)
MMG Pros: MMG, once properly set up on its tripod, and sighted in by a competent marksmen etc, is capable providing incredibly accurate and devastating suppressing fire by gunners with even poor marksmanship skills. The photo in one of the previous posts, in this thread, shows an MG34 deployed in a MMG role (there are other clues in this pic that show why a properly setup MMG can be so devastatingly effective). The stability provided by the tripod makes it possible to control high rates of fire to effectively suppress areas and also accurately engage targets at extreme ranges. In my own experience (with M-60 and M-2) I've engaged and hit targets at roughly 1500 meters simply by pulling the trigger and walking the rounds onto target by "dialing"/"clicking"/"adjusting a knob", on the tripod, to increase the elevation/traverse etc. (Edge MG34)
MMG Cons: MMG have heavy equipment that is not easily moved and transported by soldiers (50lb tripods and coolant if liquid cooled like the Vickers). It takes time to setup an MMG before it can be brought into action. It takes time to break down and displace. (Edge MG34)


But wait, the MG34 was an LMG and a MMG, doesn't that mean that it had all the pros of an LMG and a MMG and none of the cons? Nope. The MG34 had to be deployed on it's beefy 50lbs plus tripod for it to gain all the MMG benefits or perform at its murderous MMG best. This 50lbs tripod wouldn't usually be carried on a soldiers back into an attack. It would be on a truck somewhere, ready to be brought up as needed.

But wait, didn't the MG34 become a MMG when it was deployed on its 14lbs tripod? Not really. Accuracy, stability, and overall lethality did increase, but not to the levels of an MMG configuration. The 14lbs tripod only had the most basic elevation and traverse controls and it couldn't provide anywhere near the stability of the 50lbs tripod. Ergo, accuracy and effectiveness were still largely dependent on the marksmanship skills of the gunner even with the 14lbs tripod.


Cheers,

Thomas

[GottaLove88s]

A couple more 'taster' screenshots...

I've been working with Amaris and Pip (thanks for your ever generous advice, code and comments guys!) to bring more units to Dieppe...

Landing Craft Assault (LCA)... The 'invasion barge' object (from Sealion) is being worked up as a new LCA unit, which can carry up to three tank or mechanised units.

Landing Craft Infantry (LCI)... The D-Day 'DUKW' (from GJS'44 Sword & Ouistreham) is being recrafted as an LCI, now a boat rather than amphibious, carrying up to one infantry team.

Freighter... The 'assault barge' (from Arnhem) is now non-armed freighters (and tankers) used to recreate the German Boulogne-to-Dieppe convoy, escorted by the two Ubootsjagd-Flottillen (sub chasers) UJ-1411 and UJ-1404, that encountered the LCAs and LCIs of No.3 Commando as they approached Yellow Beach... See more -> http://www.journal.forces.gc.ca/vo4/no3 ... re-eng.asp

Ubootsjagd UJ-1411 and UJ-1404 and Vorpostenboote... These will come as no surprise to players of Ouistreham, but the 'MGB' has been reworked as various classes of German armed trawlers... two UJs with the Boulogne convoy and three harbour VPs just outside Dieppe... These workhorses of the Kriegsmarine are lethal versus LCAs and LCIs but not against...

Hunt Class destroyers... Again, no surprise to Ouistreham players, but the 'FairmileB' has been reworked as seven modern Royal Navy Hunt-class escorts, plus a Polish destroyer... In reality, the captains of HMS Brocklesby and the ORP Slazak got carpeted after Dieppe, for not closing up to intervene in the firefight that erupted when UJ-1411 and -1404 took No.3 Commando's landing craft to pieces...