Peterborough Games Day - Bloody Omaha

This weekend I was able to attend an all day game at the Peterborough club and to play in Mike Whitaker's 'Bloody Omaha'. This was my first ever game of IABSM and it was just awesome.

Mike took the part of the Germans, while the rest of us, Alex, Carl, Andy B(?) and myself took the Americans. Needless to say it was a struggle and of course we took took pretty heavy casualties. However, ultimately we were successful in establishing a pathway off the beach.

In fact we were pretty fortunate in that the '88' firing down the beach was dispatched early on by naval bombardment and that meant that our Sherman DD's lasted a lot longer than was expected. Also the German artillery was clearly engaged elsewhere most of the time as they were late turning up and only managed a couple of fire missions.

A special thanks to another Andy (M, I believe) who had a big hand in the terrain but who wasn't there for most of the day! You can read more about it on Mike's own blog, Trouble At t'Mill.

Finally, if you are going to OML next week, where Mike is running the game again, this is a real treat.

The table at game start - 4 sherman DDs on the beach

The first waves land on the beach...

..while the Germans wait to pound them from their bunkers.

Getting further up the beach and into a bit of shelter from the MG fire

Getting up the cliff and starting to cross the wire

Getting their feet wet again.. in the marsh

We're not doing badly here until...

.. the artillery hits.

Pushing on ...

..and over the line. Beach-head established!

So that was Bloody Omaha. This has done nothing to discourage me from getting into IABSM. Oh dear another project for the list...

Before the game proper, we mucked around a bit with the rules and it happened very differently.... Three Sherman DDs knocked out by the '88' in short order!