Drop in the Night: 82nd — Memoir ’44 Scenario

In the dead of night before D-Day, the All Americans of the 82nd Airborne didn’t tiptoe into Normandy—they dropped in like thunder. C-47s hauled them over the Channel, and under flak, wind, and pure hell, they jumped straight into the enemy’s lap. The plan was simple: grab the crossroads, smash German lines of communication, and choke off any counterattack toward Utah Beach.

They got scattered to hell and gone, fighting in small bands with nothing but guts and rifles. But by God, they took Sainte-Mère-Église—the first French town freed—and held the line until the rest of the army came ashore. It was messy, it was costly, but it damned well crippled the Germans and locked down the flank for the greatest invasion in history.

~~ General Howitzer

VP’s

Card Balance:

Allies – 5

Axis – 5

Complexity:

Conditions:

Countryside

Context:

Historical

Location:

Normandy

Year:

1944

Summary:

Victory Points:

8 Medals, including some objectives for capturing towns, bridges, and permanent medals for blowing up bridges.

Terrain:

there is a lot of terrain here with the battlefield being a breakthrough that is 17 rows deep, composed of countryside, rivers and marshes.

Troops:

Allies – 10 elite Infantry units

Axis – 10 Infantry, 1 Armor

Special Rules:

1. Allies do three Paradrops around the stars on the map.

2. Nightime Rules: Then once daylight appears, you may be given a chance to do a fourth paradrop, using lost figures, up to three total over the town of Les Forges.

3. Blowing up Bridges – once Allied forces are adjacent to a bridge, they may have an opportunity to blow it up, for a Permanent Victory Medal.

Allied strategy

1. Big Picture Strategy: This scenario is about consolidating and coordinating your forces. Because of the paradrops, they end up scattered across the battlefield in a semi-random formation. You need to pull them together and then make a plan to target sets of the enemy forces, sector by sector: isolated, attack, destroy, move to the next sector.

2. Note that you have three Temporary Medal Objectives, made up of two bridges and one town. You also have two Permanent Medal Objectives if you can blow up the designated bridges of Pont-l’Abbe, and Beuzeville.

3. Concerning the paradrops at the start of the game. The rules instruct you to center each drop around one of the three stars on the battlefield. While you may be required to do this when playing IRL with friends, the BGA site will allow you to drop them anywhere you like, subject to the same random losses and displacement issues.

Some commanders have been quite successful in dropping all of their paratroops in the same sector, and then wiping out the enemy before moving on to the next sector.

4. A second paradrop occurs at dawn. Once you hit daylight, more reinforcements will be coming your way. So hang in there!

Axis strategy

1. Be aware the the two bridges across La Douve River are each permanent medal objectives for the Allies. If they succeed in destroying your bridges, they will gain one Medal for each one, plus any forces you have locked behind the river will be stranded as the river is impassable.

2. The other two bridges with the marked Allied Medals are temporary objectives, in which the Allies must remain on the hex to keep the medal.

3. Because this is an 8 medal battle, you will need to eliminate almost all of the Allied units to win.

4. Get your kills in before daylight. Once that happens, the enemy will do another paradrop of reinforcements.

Author: Ddrommel

URL

General Howitzer Battle Reports