Progress as of 10-19-05
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Close Combat Series -> Close Combat 5: Invasion Normandy
#1: Progress as of 10-19-05 Author: Pzt_penguin,  PostPosted: Wed Oct 19, 2005 7:59 am
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Hi all , first off I would like to thank Mooxe for the forum :Cool
There hasn't been much work done lately on the mod, but
I still plan on finishing the mod. One of the hardest part was
getting the order of battle big thanks to Pzt Ronson for all
the help in that department. That is now complete and the
units & vechs are almost done There is still alot of work that needs
done the biggest being new maps and the strat map which
I have a base image for. Just thought I would keep you all up
to date on whats happening with the mod for more info like the
BGs that will be in the game you can visit theCC junkies site or theforums which has alot of the ideas and planning that has went in to it so far. I'll keep
you posted

Pzt Penguin
#2:  Author: aikmen, Location: Toronto Canada PostPosted: Wed Oct 26, 2005 1:01 am
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hey good luck with ur mod dude, it sounds like a good time!!

Aikmen
#3:  Author: Goldengod,  PostPosted: Thu Oct 27, 2005 1:50 am
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Sounds like another fantastique mod on the way
#4:  Author: ronson, Location: England PostPosted: Sat Nov 05, 2005 11:17 am
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Hello Pengiun Smile ,

I went to your forum, but I see that you have suffered from the attentions of Morons (Hackers),I won't go on about these mindless Bar Stewards just wish you well for a quick recovery.

Regarding the mod:-

I came across a reference to the Australian 18th Brigade recently, as you know this was one of the formations of Commonwealth troops which formed part of the defence forces in 1940. I was under the impression that this was simply an all infantry force, however it appears that at least part of the 2/3rd Field Regiment RAA and also 1st AT Regiment was in Britian at the same time.

As all Australian forces at that time came under AIF Headquaters, it is reasonable to suppose that these units would have operated together.

Unfortunately I have no information regarding the weapons that were in use, possibly the Field Regt. would have used 25 or 18 Pdrs and the AT Regt 2pdrs.

You might like to update the OOB's in light of this.

Cheers
Ronson
#5:  Author: Pzt_Megadeth,  PostPosted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 7:17 pm
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There were a total of 167 anti tank guns in all of england in Aug 1940. Most of the british army's heavy equipment lay abandoned at Dunkirk.

There were a total of 800 tanks in england, about half were useless vickers tankettes. The only thing the british have going for them really are the 200 or so matilda II tanks, and another 200 cruiser types. All of them are equipped with 2pdr guns. I would have been very surprised if the british had any 25 or 17 pdr guns organically deployed in the coastal regions, commonwealth or not. of the 167 AT guns in england at that time, less that 20 were calibers heavier than 2pdr.

The main british defense was concentrated near Plymouth, the reason being that it contained extensive port facilities to support a landing. The british crated a defense in depth, with mobile units concentrating in

However, the german sea transport situation was dire. The german landings would have relied on a flotilla of river barges that were completely incapable of crossing the channel in weather other than perfect calm. This means that the german first wave would have been completely without heavy artillery of any kind. For this reason, the german main attack would have been launched at the coast of Kent, in order to minimize the transit time from french ports and keep the german landings in range of luftwaffe airfields.

In the end the main blow of Seelowe would have been centered on Eastbourne, with a total of 4 german divisions attack along the coast. These would have been: 17th infantry division on the left flank, 35th Infantry Division at eastbourne, 1st Gebirgs attacking dover, and 7th infantry at Deal. The 7th Fleiger division would have been in reserve to land at airfields captured in Kent, including Hawkinge and Maidstone. In addition, airborne landings were planned north of Dover to support the Gebirgs assault on dover, whos main aim was to capture the port facilities intact.

The beach landings were to be supported by 4 Panzer battalions consisting of Trauchpanzer III amphibious tanks. 3 were to be employed on the kent landings, one for the landings near Plymouth (a further 3 divisions were to land near Cornwall in a secondary effort). The trauchpanzer was a fully submersible tank that would drive along the sea floor in shallow water, communicating with its launching boat by phone. It is dubious if all these tanks would have made it ashore in the surf of the kentish coast.

Assuming that the Royal navy would have severely interfered with future waves of german forces across the channel, these would have been the only tank support available to the german first wave for a few days.

The british army would have opposed this landing near Easbourne with 3 infantry divisions, 1 tank division and 4 brigades,

1st London Infantry near Manston
New Zealand motorized division near canterbury in reserve (brigade strength)
45th infantry division north east of Eastbourne

North West of Eastbourne, in ready reserve were:
29th infantry brigade
1st army tank brigade
1st Canadian Independent Infantry Brigade (often called erroniously a division)
1st Armored Division (which contained the bulk of the matilda IIs)
#6:  Author: ronson, Location: England PostPosted: Wed Nov 09, 2005 6:42 pm
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Yes you are certainly correct concerning the numbers of guns and tanks however these figures are for June (post Dunkirk) and are to be found in Ironsides GHQ line plan presented to the Chiefs of Staff on 25th June. To update them the UK defence factories were producing around 50 Field guns and 100 tanks per month during the summer of 1940. Additionally supplies of arms from the USA originally destined for France were redirected to the UK, as were several Commonwealth formations among them the 18th Australian Brigade who were en route to the Middle East at the time.

That great majority of the AT guns would have been 2 pdrs, which would have been the most effective weapons, other types included 25mm, 3 pdr and 12 pdr these were utilised to make up numbers and had at best a speculative AT capability.

The Field Regiments RA were integral parts of Infantry divisions and these guns would have remained with the parent unit. Equipment would have been the 25pdr plus some of the older 18pdr & 13 pdr Field guns dating from WW1.

Also a number of 4.5 inch Howitzers appear in the Field Regiments at this time. Total numbers of Field guns in Britain is almost impossible to tell as figures range between 600 to 1000 depending on where you find them, also what kind of gun are they? a modern artillery piece or a stop gap measure which is simply able to fire a shell.

At this time there also existed the 'Emergency Batteries' these were spaced out along the coast equipped with 4 and 6 inch guns which had once been mounted in ships ( these were manned by both soldiers and sailors). They were supplied with approx. 100 rounds and instructed to fire only at 'Big Game' targets!

There was some more up to date costal artillery mounted at Dover, plus in the Dover- Folkstone region some of the latest 3.7 AA guns which had an impressive AT capability, however this would have been limited by the amount of AP ammunition then available.

Are you sure you mean Plymouth? or should that read Portsmouth, Plymouth is quite a distance from France and would be a long crossing in a river barge, and would be a strange place for the British army to cover the approach to London.

Are you sure that 1st Armoured Division operated Matildas at this time, this would be unusual to say the least, as British armoured divisions normally consisted of nothing heavier than a cruiser or medium type tank. The usual organisation was for the heavy tanks to be allocated to the Independant or Army Tank Brigades.

This,(June-September 1940) is a confusing time, as unit designations seemed to change weekly as new or refurbished units were added to the OOB, and also the command structure and deployment were also affected.
For example Ironsides inital plans (June) for a series of stop lines leading up to the GHQ line, with a small mobile reserve, were completely revamped by Brooke when he took over, he insisted that the defence would based on mobility supported by static detachments. A complete turn around in 2 months!, needless to say a great deal of this was due to the formations and arms including those from overseas that were becoming available.

Cheers
Ronson
#7: mmm Author: ANZAC_Lord4war, Location: Sydney Australia PostPosted: Wed Nov 09, 2005 11:20 pm
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ye i dont think the ozis got their hands on 25 pders till 1941.
thou they may have had british ones given to them to operate whilst they were there.
but i think they would equip the british troops with them first,such was the commonwealth way of thinking back then.
the first ones delivered to ozi went straight to tank prototypes plans.
#8:  Author: ronson, Location: England PostPosted: Thu Nov 10, 2005 1:46 am
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I'd go along with that mate, the nearest thing I can find is a 1939 OOB which lists an Australian division as having 3 Field Regts each made up of 12x18pdrs and 4x4.5"Howitzers. I reckon its a pretty safe bet this was still the same in 1940.
#9:  Author: Pzt_Megadeth,  PostPosted: Thu Nov 10, 2005 4:18 pm
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Yes, i meant Portsmouth, not plymouth. You are correct about the 1st armored division, but it did have one army tank regiment (heavy) out of its 3 regiments. Those would have included matilda II. The rest would have been scattered among the independant army brigades as you pointed out.

The deployment plan I quoted was from Brookes revamped plan of mobile defense. The 3 infantry divisions that I mentioned were considered fully equipped line divisions, of which there were 8 in total. The rest of the 40 or so infantry "divisions" in england were missing transport, heavy equipment and pretty much consisted only of rifle equipped territorials.

The real defense of england was the Royal Navy, but it was deployed out of bomber range in Scappa Flow. In the event of a seabourne invasion, it would have had to run a gauntlet of minefields, submarines and stuka attacks before reaching the channel. I do believe that some of the landings would have been heavily interefered with by the RN despite this, and any mod of sealion would have to give the defenders some fairly heavy naval artillery support along the landings on day 2 +.

I believe that the germans would have had 1 or 2 days at most of unempeeded supply flow accross the channel, after that their reinforcements and rate of supply would have been almost exclusively air supplied (a trickle) I dont believe that RN would have been stopped from cutting the channel crossings clean. The problem is, 9 german divisions would be accross at that point (4 more than at D-Day!) Would they have been able to take london and force a surrender of the english government? Possibly.....
#10:  Author: ronson, Location: England PostPosted: Thu Nov 10, 2005 7:21 pm
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You are absolutely right 'The real defence of England was the Royal Navy', even with the majority of the Home Fleet deployed in Scapa, one day away from the Channel, there were 3 Light Cruisers and 17 Destroyers deployed at the East end of the channel close to the proposed landing sites. To counter these the Germans had something like 14 torpedo boats.

The ability to even slow the approach of the main fleet is also questionable, at Dunkirk over a period of days with ships either stood still or manoeuvering in small harbours the Luftwaffe with total control of the air for long periods managed to sink 4 out of the 39 Destroyers used, hardly encouraging. Any U boats that were not being used to 'close' the west end of the channel would have had one chance for a shot as the fleet with a speed of something like 20 knots passed by, again not much of a chance there.

Leaving aside the problem of the Home Fleet, weather conditions in the Channel itself would have posed a considerable difficulty for the various vessels the Germans planned to use as transport.
The 1200 barges that were assembled had no power, relying on tugs to pull them across, they had a very shallow freeboard unsuitable for use in any sea state above 2 and would have moved at approx. 2-3 knots, this in the Channel where tides can run at up to 5 knots.
This large slow moving formation would have presented an almost unmissable target to the RAF bomber squadrons.

Even taking these problems into account, once the first wave is ashore then the real troubles begin, resupply and reinforcement over a hostile seaway.
No matter how many of the first wave who actually make it ashore, once the ammunition starts to run out, they become so many stranded tourists.

Cheers
Ronson
#11:  Author: Pzt_Megadeth,  PostPosted: Thu Nov 10, 2005 8:12 pm
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Yes, your facts are correct on all counts. However, dont you think the germans would have been able to re-supply light ammunition (small arms) through captured airfields north of Dover? They pretty much carried out an invasion of Norway exclusively by air, and I doubt the RAF would have been able to stop the flow of light troops and supply from the air, the entire Kent area was within fighter range. Besides attempting to take on the Luftwaffe over Kent would have pretty much played right into the german air advantage.

I think the RN would have cut off all other supply, and possibly even destroyed a chunk of the barge trains before they reached england, or on their way back.
#12: mmm Author: ANZAC_Lord4war, Location: Sydney Australia PostPosted: Sun Nov 13, 2005 4:23 am
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As the mod is fictional,the supply and battle of the channel are obstacles already overcome by the germans to reach this point.
Have the options of making battles and gcs on limited supply.
#13:  Author: caribacey, Location: St Martin, Caribbean PostPosted: Sun Nov 13, 2005 5:01 pm
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Did the Germans have a good paratrooper threat at this time? The paratroopers were pretty effective at Crete.
#14:  Author: ronson, Location: England PostPosted: Sun Nov 13, 2005 9:40 pm
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Yes the Germans at this time had the 7th Flieger Division of paratroops, which consisted of 4 regiments who were Luftwaffe troops. Also the army had the 22nd Airlanding Division which was made up of another 3 regiments.
Although the 22nd were not jump trained, they were intended to be landed by transport plane on captured airfield.

In 1940, even taking into account the losses these formations had suffered in the low countries, this was a pretty powerful force of well trained soldiers and I feel would have been the most effective part of any attempted landing.
#15: Early War British Armoured Division Author: ronson, Location: England PostPosted: Mon Nov 14, 2005 7:57 pm
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The organisation of these are extremely strange, they did contain a 'heavy' brigade, as well as 2 'light' brigades, however all these were equipped with the cruiser tank.
The tank used in the heavy brigade was in fact the mkII cruiser, sometimes referred to as the A10. In order to give a more battleworthy tank than the mkI orA9, the bright idea was to double the armour thickness. Unfortunately this had the effect of slowing the vehicle down considerably! which meant that it was unable to keep up with its lighter cousins that it was supposed to be supporting.
The squadron breakdown was 6 'light' tanks + 4 'heavy' tanks. All were armed with the 2pdr (40mm) gun,(surprising someone didn't alter that too just to make supply just that little bit harder Laughing).
There were in the region of 150 to 200 of each type produced, before they were replaced by the mkIII & mkIV (A13), which compromised on the armour by reducing it on side and rear while retaining the thicker 30mm frontal armour.

A most confusing subject I must admit, as the tanks seem to have been spread all over the place with 'Heavy' tanks appearing in 'Light' brigades and vice versa. More DIS organisation than organisation!

Cheers
Ronson
#16:  Author: Nembo,  PostPosted: Fri Nov 18, 2005 4:36 am
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Something to remember is that the germans may have started giving regular soldiers a one day crash course on being a paratrooper and then dropping them within German lines in England. Which is what they did at Narvick.

Just my two cents.
#17:  Author: Pzt_penguin,  PostPosted: Tue Nov 22, 2005 1:18 am
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Thanks for the feed back guys. :Cool Im looking to put together a mod team
for this mod. I mostly need research. I know ronson was part of the mod team,
but I lost all those good post when the forum went down. So if anyone is intrested signup at the CCJ forums
after you sign up just put a post in the opsealion forum.
#18:  Author: sample,  PostPosted: Tue Nov 22, 2005 8:38 am
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Hi all,

i know that this mod is a fictional one but i found a good analisys of this scenario at this site http://www.flin.demon.co.uk/althist/seal1.htm

perhaps it will help

regards,
M.
#19:  Author: Blackstump, Location: Hunter Valley Australia PostPosted: Sat Nov 26, 2005 10:03 pm
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2/3rd Field Regiment RAA arrived in England, June 1940 was equipped with 25 pounders and trained till december. Then departed for the middle east
#20:  Author: Blackstump, Location: Hunter Valley Australia PostPosted: Sun Nov 27, 2005 9:56 am
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along with the 18th Australian Brigade ( 2/9th,2/10th,2/11th,2/12, battalion there being 4 battalions to the brigade at this stage of the Australian army which by the way being 6th division were hand picked troops) was 3 NZEF battalions the 22, 23rd and 28th (maori) and ancillory forces which included an artillery regiment. I also found reference that tho ill equiped on arrival these troops were well equiped with in weeks as England procured(from America) and production was increased rapidly due to the invasion being imminent
Close Combat Series -> Close Combat 5: Invasion Normandy


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