Recreating History: The Normandy Landings By Jacopo Perini My brother and I first had the thought of recreating the Normandy Landings around a year ago. We are both interested in the Second World War and keen Flames Of War players; therefore, we thought that we could pay homage to this important event in history and those who sacrificed so much through our creation.

In discussing the possible ways we could do it, I remembered that Battlefront had created the table for their books. So our idea was to build a gaming table of standard dimensions in modular panels. This would allow us to make the coastal area and the hinterland, not to mention the reconstruction of the scenic elements using historical photographs as reference material.

Since we wanted to create something special, we needed to see these places for ourselves. So we travelled to Normandy and found the inspiration we were longing for. Once home again, we decided to focus on a particular section of the landings.

The area which impacted us most during our visit was a specific one: the sector near Utah Beach, between Crisbeq and Azeville, where artillery emplacements of the Wehrmacht which were part of the Atlantic Wall were situated. In this place one of the out-of-the-military-books action, both for the German and Allied forces took place. This would be our inspiration for the project.

We immediately got to work on the project and after two months of what seemed like ceaseless work, we obtained something we had never done before, despite of several years of model-making! This thanks on one hand to the model painting and on the other to the building of the table itself.

Obviously, our creation couldn't be left standing there as a static thing, as one of our goals was to pay tribute to those involved in the actual events. Therefore, we were able to show it at some events which took place in Trieste, among others, during the show for the commemoration of the D-Day. Not to mention playing a few games of Flames Of War on it. ~ Jacopo.