Microsoft Close Combat manual Normandy June 13

74Close Combat

							flooded by the Germans. But if the troops of Bradley’s First Army think
		“I had no intention of pinning					they will now have a few days’ triumphant progress inland to Saint-Lô,
							they are mistaken.
		down forces at Saint-Lô until
		Cherbourg was safely in hand .					The British Take The Heat Off
		. . . Not until a few days before
		the breakout did I lift the					On D-Day, and in the days following the invasion, the British Second
		prohibition on Saint-Lô.”					Army makes a determined assault on Caen. This convinces the
		Gen. Omar Bradley					Germans that this city, situated amid good tank terrain, is the Allies’
							major invasion objective, the key to a future Allied breakout across the
							plain running south to Falaise. But Montgomery’s actual objective is
							to attract and hold as much German armor in the British sector as
							possible. Tying up the Germans on the Allies’ eastern flank will free the
							American forces on the western flank to take the port of Cherbourg,
				Normandy: June 13, 1944						then proceed south, and
										pivot to break out onto
U.S. 82nd										the high ground east of
Airborne Division										Saint-Lô.
		U.S. 4th								Montgomery’s plan works
										well, as the Germans deploy
		Infantry Division
		U.S. 101st								eight Panzer divisions with
		Airborne Division								500 to 700 tanks to defend
		Carentan		Aure River		U.S. 1st
						Division				Caen, making that area their
				U.S. 29th			Bayeux			center of resistance against
				Division						the Allies. As a result,
				U.S. 2nd
	River		River				eRiver			between June 15 and July
Taute				Division	Forest				Caen
							Drom			25, there are never more than
		Vire		Cerisy
										190 serviceable German
		German
										tanks opposite the American
	352nd Division						Panzer Lehr
										sector.
		SaintÐL™ German 3rd							River
								Orne		The initial Allied assaults are
				Parachute Division						also aided by the belief of
										many German commanders,
							including Hitler, that the Normandy invasion is a diversion. The main
							invasion, they insist, is still to come at the Pas de Calais. Because of
		“Even though we fell back other					this, German Fifteenth Army troops that could fight in Normandy
							remain stuck in Calais, defending against a landing that never comes.
		parts of our regiment were still
							Reinforcements for those German Seventh Army troops who are
		fighting in the hedgerows.
							actively combating the U.S. and British forces come slowly and
		Sometimes it was only a
							sporadically, due to Allied air superiority and the infrastructure damage
		handful of men, but here that
							it causes.
		could hold up a company.”
		Obergrenadier Karl Wegner,
		352nd Infantry Division