SWORD BEACH: British Order of Battle

While I’m waiting for the wash to dry on some Adler tank crews I picked up from Warfare last month, I’ve some time to review the British order of battle for Sword beach.

It’s worth mentioning that my current plan is to play this game on an 8×6 table. Focus will be on the assault phase of the landing, with the beach area from WN20 ‘Cod’ at La Breche d’Hermanville across to the Casino & Riva Bella strongpoint area at Ouistreham. So we’ll have 8 feet width of beach, and a depth of 6 feet reaching through the dunes, lateral road, and beyond.

Behind the immediate beach area will sit a representation of Hermanville or Colleville, Morris Battery and the Hillman complex. Time and space permitting, I hope to also develop the area behind Ouistreham. It’s been tough to decide what to have in scope, but I also want to keep some perspective to the table so that Hillman isn’t 6 inches behind the beach for example. On that basis I’m not including any of the Orne river actions. Insert sad face here!

I’d planned to have initial test games on a 6×4 mat from Deep Cut Studios, then building up towards the ‘big game’ on scratch-built boards. But while the mat is superb, given progress on the boards I’ll dive straight onto them.

The 4 boards I’ve built specifically for this scenario are based on historical maps, photographs and sources. But of course in 20mm I’ve had to take some liberties with spacing. So for example the outskirts of Ouistreham will be around 6 feet from Cod, and Hillman will be only 3-4 feet behind the beach.

Part of the learning and rationale behind scaling up the games will be whether I go with Battlegroup or Rapid Fire Reloaded for the ‘big game’ – both are good rules that offer something very different.

The core of my landing force, referencing the excellent Overlord book for the Battlegroup rules, currently includes:

6 Infantry Assault Platoons, 2Commando Assault Boat Troop, 2 Commando Support Teams, 2 Sherman DD Troops, 1 Centaur Troop, 1 Beach Obstacle Demo Party, 1 Beach Assault Tank Troop, all of which are at various stages of WIP!

All of the figures are AB, apart from Commandos which are all SHQ and the Suffolks which are Fizzer’s. Vehicles include PSC, Raventhorpe, EWM, and a few conversions using S&S Models and Dan Taylor Modelworks kits. 

All these chaps need something to transport them across the English Channel to assault the beach, and that’s where historically ‘Force S’ comes in.

Each of the five Normandy landing beaches had allocated naval and landing forces, the nomenclature of which followed the first letter of the beach. So S for Sword, J for June and so on. Major landing ships, and some minor, carried this letter prominently. Likewise each beach had its own identification colour; for Sword this was green. Again many landing craft (especially LCI(S) and LCTs) carried this colour band around their superstructure.

I’m using mostly Raventhorpe landing craft with some Britannia, Airfix, and conversions in there. Crews are Raventhorpe, Britannia, and SHQ. Still tempted with a Milicast LCM MK I!

Enough background, here’s the order of battle as it currently stands for my assault on Sword, though I’m expecting to include further units as I form them such as artillery, Staffordshire Yeomanry, Kings Shropshire Light Infantry, beach communications party etc. For the Naval forces these are elements of the very much larger forces involved on Sword. In a later post I’ll share the complete historical order of battle including Force S and the reinforced British 3rd Infantry Division. As far as possible I’ve endeavoured to land my forces using historically accurate landing craft. 

Forget the scene in The Longest Day where Lovat and his Commandos are hitting the beach from LCMs, it’s LCI(S) and LCAs here!

NAVAL FORCE ‘S’: ASSAULT GROUP S3

Prinses Astrid (Carrying 4 Cdo)

500 Assault Flotilla (LCA) 360, 419

SS Empire Battleaxe

537 Assault Flotilla (LCA) 1251, 1252

SS Empire Broadsword

538 Assault Flotilla (LCA) 635, 638, 

‘E’ Landing Craft Squadron

41 LCT Flotilla (LCT MkIV) 610 (LTIN 212)

100 LCT Flotilla (LCT(A) MKV) 2012 (545)

Support Squadron

201 LCI(S) Flotilla (LCI(S) (Attached from Assault Group J4): 523 (Fr Cdo)

BUILD UP GROUP ‘S’

‘C’ Build Up Squadron

812 Build Up Flotilla LCV(P) 1256, 1257

‘D’ Build Up Squadron

653 Build Up Flotilla LCM (Mk3) 561, 627, 1293

BRITISH 3rd INFANTRY DIVISION

8th Infantry Brigade

1st Bn, Suffolk Regt (1st Suffolks) A, B, C, D and Support Coy (Fizzer’s Men of Metal)

2nd Bn, East Yorkshire Regt (2nd East Yorks) A, B, C, D and Support Coy (AB Figures)

1st Bn, South Lancashire Regt (1st South Lancs) A, B, C, D and Support Coy (AB Figures)

Divisional Troops

2nd Bn, Middlesex Regt (Machine Gun) (2nd Middlesex) (AB Figures)

Attached to British 3rd Infantry Division

101st Beach Sub-Area

No 5 Beach Group: 5th Bn, King’s Regt (5th King’s) (AB Figures)

1st Special Service Brigade

No 4 Commando (4 Cdo)             C Troop (SHQ)

No 10 Commando (IA)(10 Cdo)  8 Troop (SHQ)

5th (Independent) Royal Marines Armoured Support Group

Centaur troop. (PSC conversions)

27th Armoured Brigade

13/18th Hussars (13/18H) A Sqn (DD) (Britannia & Raventhorpe), B Sqn (DD) (Britannia & Raventhorpe), C Sqn (PSC)

101 General Transport Company, RASC (DUKW) (Airfix)

79th ARMOURED DIVISION

30th Armoured Brigade

22nd Dragoons (22 Drag)     (Sherman Flails) (PSC S&S Model conversions)

1st Assault Brigade, Royal Engineers

5th Assault Regiment, Royal Engineers (AVREs) (PSC S&S Model conversions, Raventhorpe)

In the not too distant future I’ll share my German order of battle and a full landing table broken down into waves, in the meantime plenty of building and painting to do. Now, let’s check on those tank crew.

Thanks for reading.