Bloody Verrieres

The I. SS-PanzerKorps' Defence of the Verrieres - Bourguebus Ridges Volume II

by

 Arthur W. Gullachsen

 This is volume II of a comprehensive look at the defense of the ridges during the Normandy Campaign. This book will have a tough time equaling its older brother. Volume I was full of history tidbits that I have not seen anywhere else and there are tons of books on this part of the Normandy Campaign.

 Have no fear, the author has continued in Volume II to shine a light onto the history of the battles for the ridges. He also never fails to report on the bravery and tenacity of the British, and Canadian etc. attackers. He does, however, find fault with what he calls their "bite and hold" tactics. He feels that they are using outdated World War I tactics in World War II. This is a point that he makes throughout the book with plenty of examples. He shows us how the German 1st SS Panzerkorps used a defense in depth to absorb the British and Commonwealth attacks. He also contends, along with other writers, that the British and Commonwealth attacks and losses were not in vain (although they could have been better commanded and planned out). They kept the main striking power of the German Army in Normandy in a desperate battle for Caen and the surrounding area. This allowed the Americans to break through on the German left flank. 

 In the book he dispels some of the myths that we have been taught about the campaign. Such as, Sepp Dietrich did not know how to read a map or that the SS in Normandy were just fanatics that had no real tactical ability. The author shows that the Germans were able to halt the Commonwealth forces even though they were completely outmatched in artillery and air power.

 The book comes in at just under 300 pages including the appendices, end notes, bibliography, and index. It shows the battle for the ridges from July 23 - August 5, 1944. The author concentrates on the 2nd Canadian Corps attack during Operation Spring starting on July 25th. The book continues with the German counterattacks after Operation Spring. This shows how the German forces were still resilient even after the long battle for the environs of Caen. 

 Thank you, Casemate Publishers, for allowing me to review this second volume from this author. He is a captain in the Canadian Army and also a teacher of military history in the Royal Military College of Canada's History department. The books are two of the best to read about the tactical warfare during the Normandy Campaign. They should be in the library of anyone who has any interest in the campaign.

Robert

Book: Bloody Verrieres: The I. SS-PanzerKorps' Defence of the Verrieres - BourGuebus Ridges Volume II

Author: Arthur W. Gullachsen

Publisher: Casemate Publishers

 Normandy 1944

German Military Organization, Combat Power and Organizational Effectiveness

by

Niklas Zetterling

  This is not a book for the casual reader of history. This book is meant for readers who already have a background in military history, especially World War II history. The author's conclusions in some of the chapters of the book are sure to raise some eyebrows, and bring forth some harrumphs. Some of the book's chapters are:

German Terminology

German Combat Unit Organization

The Effects of Allied Air Power

German Tanks Employed in Normandy

German Losses in Normandy

German Combat Efficiency

 The first myth the author dispels is the 'Tiger' myth. Very few Tigers were actually employed in Normandy, and the chance of an Allied Soldier running into one was pretty slim. Reading some veteran accounts, every building and hedgerow was hiding a malevolent Tiger. The next dispelled myth is the effectiveness of Allied Air Power. Some books have been written to show that a German Soldier could not raise his head for fear of a P-51 or P-47 blowing it off. The truth, according to the author, is that while the Allied Air Forces did very well in destroying the French rail network, their contribution to the destruction of the German Forces was not nearly as significant as was once thought. As an example, the author shows that during the Falaise Gap debacle, at most three percent of the German Vehicles were destroyed from the air. This was during what could be described as a 'turkey shoot', from the Allied point of view.

 The author will probably get some pushback on his evaluation of German combat efficiency. The author uses his own calculations to deduce that German combat efficiency was greater than the Allies across the board. This amount would vary according to the training etc. of the German unit or units in each battle. One statement by the author is very telling to me. In it he states, "That during the summer of 1944 the Allies actually had a greater numerical superiority in Normandy than the Red Army had on the Eastern Front. Despite this, the Allies did not really make better progress than the Red Army. Few have questioned the superior combat effectiveness of the Germans over the Red Army."

 Most wargamers are also statisticians at heart. We tend to remember the actual OOBs of many battles etc. This book is a God send for those of us who are wired that way. To show two examples of what is in the book:

 On May 15, 1944 SS-Panzer Division "Das Reich" had 18 7.5 cm IG guns on hand.

On May 24, 1944 the same division received 8 Panther tanks

 Information like this is to be had in the book on every German division that took part in the Normandy Campaign.

 If you are a reader of history that lives on facts and figures this is a book for you. As far as the author's conclusions, this has been a battle that has raged over the last 75 years. I will leave it to each reader and his own deductions. All I can say, is that Mr. Zetterling goes out of his way with information to back up his conclusions. I recommend this to any history lover and especially wargamers and anyone who is thinking of developing a wargame or modifying an existing one. 

 Thank you Casemate Publishers for allowing me to review another one of your fine efforts.

Robert

Book: Normandy 1944: German Military Organization, Combat Power and Organizational Effectiveness

Author: Niklas Zetterling

Publisher: Casemate Publishers

The Battle of the Odon

by

Georges Bernage

 This book is a mesh of a straight forward history book and a photo book on Operation Epsom in 1944 outside of Caen. Usually books with this many pictures and maps etc. are a bit thin on the written history; not so with Battle of The Odon. Almost every page is covered with World War II pictures of people, places, and armaments. It is also filled with many pictures of the same from nowadays. The author has added tons of maps to enable the reader to follow along with no trouble. There are also many first hand accounts of the fighting to captivate the reader, but the author does not lose sight of the big picture. 

 The roughly 280 pages of the book follow the British and German forces from June 25th, 1944 to June 30th, 1944. It is pretty amazing that the author has found this much info and pictures dealing with just five days of the Battle for Normandy. The book follows the desperate defense of the Odon valley by the German SS troops. To quote the author "The resources committed by Montgomery were extensive, especially considering the enemy only numbered a few hundred infantrymen, who were supported by a hundred or so Panzers".

 From Tiger Tanks to Bren carriers, all of the armaments are shown. This is also one of the few books that I have read on battles or campaigns that show the amount of civilian casualties and their plight. There are pictures of the poor civilians trying to escape the fighting, carrying everything they can of their possessions. It really brings the human part of the battle to the forefront. 

 The author is painstaking in his efforts to tell the complete story of this battle. He also does not have an axe to grind, nor does he take any sides. This is history as it was meant to be, purely retelling an important part of our history without embellishment or any skew. The written history is done well enough for any history buff who normally eschews picture books. On the other hand, the amount of pictures and data is almost the same as a coffee table book. For those of you who actually remember any of the French you took, the author's books are available in English and French on the Casemate Publishers' site.

Robert

Book: The Battle of The Odon

Author: Georges Bernage

Publisher: Pen and Sword

Distributor: Casemate Publishers

John Tiller's Panzer Battles of Normandy Review

 

 The name John Tiller is well known to any wargamer during the last quarter century. His litany of games include the series 'Squad Battles', 'Panzer Campaigns', 'Napoleonic Battles', 'Civil War Battles', ' The Campaign Series', and even more. The game companies he has worked with are 'Talonsoft' and 'HPS Simulations'. For a few years now he has been on his own with 'John Tiller Software'. One of the more amazing things about this litany of games is that is is continually being updated all through the years. I just started playing a WWI mod for the Campaign series that was just released. This shows the longevity his games have. So we should expect the highest quality and gaming from a release of his. Let's see how his newest release 'Panzer Battles Normandy' stacks up. See, we are wargamers and I used the word stacks, I know, I know, sorry.


  Panzer, the word invokes a picture now, probably of a Tiger tank. Once it used to invoke fear. The word is short for 'Panzerkampfwagen'. All compound German words have to have an acronym. If they didn't you'd have a stroke trying to pronounce them; just look up the actual German word for FLAK,which stands for fliegerabwehrkanone, gesundheit. Mark Twain in his essay 'The Awful German Language' poked fun at their words with "some German words are so long that they have perspective".


 Panzer Battles Normandy is the younger brother of Panzer Battles Kursk. This new series is meant to allow the player to indulge in scenarios as counter heavy as the Panzer Campaign series or much less with it's smaller scale. The scale is 250 meters per hex and thirty minutes time per turn, where the Panzer Campaign scale was 1 Km per hex and two hour turns. Squad battles scale is 40 meters per hex and ten minute turn times. It has mouse wheel zooming for ease of use and eyesight.


  The master map has almost 400,000 hexes. The full Normandy map that comes with the game is so large I cannot do it justice with this image. Scrolling the entire map is only recommended for people who are looking forward to carpal tunnel syndrome. The stacking limit for a hex can be found when right clicking on the hex info area of the screen, by default it is on the upper left of the screen. There is a maximum stacking limit along with a road movement stacking limit.

 It comes with two campaigns and a total of ninety-three scenarios. The scenarios range from small battalion size to large where you are in charge of an entire corps.

•June 6th; D-Day Landings 14 scenarios
•June 7th; Hitlerjugend's counterattack 2 scenarios
•June 11th; Operation Perch 3 scenarios
•June 13th; Villers Bocage 2 scenarios
•June 13th to June 14th; Carentan 2 scenario
•June 22nd; Cherbourg 3 scenarios
•June 25th; Operation Martlet 2 scenarios
•June 26th to June 29th; Operation Epsom 4 scenarios
•July 4th; Operation Windsor 1 scenario
•July 11th; St Lo 4 scenarios
•July 18th to July 19th; Operation Goodwood 6 scenarios
•July 25th; Operation Spring 2 scenarios
•July 26th to July 29th; Operation Cobra 3 scenarios
•July 30th to August 5th; Operation Bluecoat 7 scenarios
•August 7th to August 8th; Operation Lüttich 3 scenarios
•August 8th to August 9th; Operation Totalize 4 scenarios
•August 11th to August 12th; US 3rd Army breakout 2 scenarios
•August 19th; Falaise gap 1 scenario
•4th/7th Royal Dragoon Guards Campaign 5 scenarios
•2nd Armored Division (US) Campaign 18 scenarios

 For those of you who like to mod, you can use the unit components, order-of-battle, and scenario editors.

 There is even a campaign editor added to the game. I will post from the campaign editor 'Help File'.
 "A Campaign consists of a series of Situations. Each Situation offers each side in the Campaign a list of Choices. Each side picks one of these Choices not knowing what the other side has decided. After each side has selected their Choice, then the selections are cross referenced to arrive at an Outcome. An Outcome consists of a Scenario in a Module and 5 other Situations associated with the 5 possible victory conditions that can result from a battle: Major Defeat, Minor Defeat, Draw, Minor Victory, and Major Victory. In addition, an Expected Value is associated with each Outcome for use by the A/I (Artificial Intelligence). The Scenario is fought by the two sides and the Allied victory condition resulting from this battle is used to determine the next Situation according to the 5 Situations associated with the Outcome. This process is repeated and continues until a Terminal Situation is reached which represents the resolution of the Campaign."

 It sounds rather over the top, but the help file walks you through it step by step, and the way that the editor has been setup with its drop down menus is much more intuitive in reality.

  With the amount of editing that can be done, and the fact that you can chop up the huge master map into any size bits you want, we should be inundated with used made scenarios. I wouldn't be surprised to see a William the Conqueror or Viking raid scenario (just kidding). In reality you can edit pretty much anything you want. In this day and age of computer wargaming, it's like a breath of fresh air. To be more precise it's like a breath of older air. The modding capabilities remind me of games from twenty years ago.


  You can play against the AI, PBEM, and LAN and internet live play, along with two player hot seat. PBEM is not my cup of tea, but I have read all about the process and the comments from users and it seems pretty seamless.

  Besides the user manual download, there are five other excellent downloads for your use. This is the list.

•Designer Notes (149 page 15MB PDF file)
•Planning Maps (88 page 203MB PDF file)
•Getting Started Guide (42 page 9MB PDF file)
•User Manual (102 page 2MB PDF file)
•Summer Map (190MB PNG file)
•Visual Order of Battle (136 page 68MB PDF file)


  The game itself is pretty much what you would expect from a John Tiller wargame. You can see that their pedigree stretches back to board wargames. The Tiller system for most of his games revolves around a unit quality system that grades a unit from 'A' to 'E', with 'A' being the best. Movement, casualties, and combat lower the unit on the scale. Just as in real warfare, resting your units at times is essential for your cyber troops.


  Engineering units can do the following: Bridge operations, clear mines or rubble, lay mines, and damage bridges or anti-tank ditches.


  Air units are either combat or recon. You can call in airstrikes against a particular enemy unit, and you can also use heavy bombers to carpet bomb an entire hex, as was used by the Allies at several times during the campaign.


  Playing as the Germans, be prepared to keep your head down and learn to deal with the overwhelming power of the Allied air forces, land, and naval gunfire. When playing as the Allies use the same, and use your preponderance of material compared to wasting your troops.


  The smaller scenarios are perfect for the John Tiller neophyte to sink his teeth into. All of the John Tiller wargames are higher on the complexity scale. The Panzer Battles games with their smaller scenarios and counter count are tailor made for the tyro who wants to get further into our hobby than 'Axis and Allies', etc. To help newbies and to also speed up your turns, you can turn on the 'firing AI' for your forces and leave the shooting to them.

 
 Do not expect to have your way against the AI as the Allies or Germans. I have tried numerous times to replicate Michael Wittmannn's achievement in the battle of Villars-Bocage. For those who have forgotten, it was Wittmann and six other Tiger tanks and a handful of other forces against an entire British Armored division. The British had found the German left flank hanging in the wind and might nave been able to end the Normandy campaign much sooner. The British had stopped on the road for a 'spot of tea'. Wittman's gunner Bobby Woll made the comment,"they are acting as if they've won the war already." Followed by Wittmann's retort "we're going to prove them wrong." The Germans attacked and stopped the 7th armored (the desert rats) cold.   


 Whilst I admit I am not a lady of the evening concerning graphics, I am getting on in years and the prescription for my glasses is not getting any better. The newer map graphics that have been touted by JTS, and the graphics overall are much improved from the earlier games. It is much easier to distinguish elevation just as advertised.There have been some great visual mods done for the older Tiller games, and no doubt some more will be made for this one. It would depend on your personal likes and dislikes. For me, the graphics are their best yet, and I really don't see any need for improvement, but this is of course just my personal take on the matter.


 The only addition I would like to see is a campaign for some of the German forces. A campaign based on the book 'Grenadiers' would be a great way to understand the amount of material and forces that the Allies needed to use to pry the Germans out of Caen would be excellent. Thankfully, with all the editing ability that JTS put into the game, I think we will see that sooner rather than later.


  If this game is to your liking, and it will be if you are a wargamer, then head back online and buy Normandy's older brother 'Panzer Battles Kursk'. While there, take a gander at the rest of the excellent wargames for sale.  


 For anyone who has not looked at the John Tiller games for a while, the original DRM is long gone and it is a much simpler system of just adding your serial.

  Now for my pet peeve. Who else gets annoyed at an announcer when they read off 'Panzer tank'. Congratulations, you just made yourself sound like a three year old by saying 'tank tank'.

Robert

Game: Panzer Battles Normandy
Developer: John TillerSoftware
Software Publisher: John Tiller Software
Review Date: 7/24/16