Firestorm: Cherbourg & St. Lô

Firestorm: Cherbourg & St. Lô with Jökull Gislason Firestorm: Cherbourg & St. Lô covers the US Sector of the Normandy campaign. Last year Firestorm: Caen was released and it was always my intention to do the same for the US landings. I really enjoy Firestorm campaigns. They give players the opportunity to play Flames Of War games in a larger context and give every game a greater meaning. The most important part is to enjoy the games and that is the right atmosphere in which to play Firestorm games. It is a group event and you should make sure the games are exciting but in a friendly manner. Designing Firestorm campaigns to this level is considerable work. I always try to capture the essence of the campaign. Just drawing areas and creating Firestorm troops is simple enough, but I have tried very hard to stay true to the original campaign. When I started designing a Firestorm for Normandy I started with the entire campaign but felt that the British-Canadian and US sectors were fundamentally different and that by splitting them in two I would be more faithful to actual events. Since I had already covered the US forces in Firestorm: Lorraine it was natural to look at the British-Canadians first. Besides I was lucky to have been an exchange student in Canada one year and felt that they deserved special attention.

Below: The Firestorm: Cherbourg & St. Lô campaign map.

View Jökull's other Firestorm Campaigns on our Campaigns Landing page here...

I was going to do Firestorm: Cherbourg & St. Lô the same way I had done Firestorm: Caen but I soon found out that it would be different. To begin with I found far fewer books on the subject. The landings are well covered and there is also a lot about Operation Cobra but much less attention has been given to the time in between. The British Second Army had fanciful names on their operations like Epsom and Goodwood while the Americans only have them for D-Day. Then I had read that the Germans concentrated their efforts against the British-Canadian sector and Caen. This became obvious when I was identifying the main German units that fought against the Allied landings. In the area surrounding Caen the Germans fielded Wehrmacht Panzer Divisions Lehr, 2nd and 21st Panzer. 1. SS, 2. SS, 9. SS and 10. SS-Divisions as well as SS Heavy Battalions 101 and 102 equipped with Tiger tanks were also involved. Later the 503 Wehrmacht King Tiger Battalion became engaged. Against the Americans the Germans only had the 17. SS-Division and the II Fallschirmjäger Corps of comparable quality. At the same time the US sector was almost three times the size of the British-Canadian sector and included one of the main objectives, the harbour of Cherbourg.

It tends to be forgotten that Operation Overlord was in essence an operation to secure a foothold in Northern Europe and a staging area for future offensives. The key to accomplish this was to secure a harbour to sustain the supply and logistics needed. D-Day is well known among the people of today but far fewer realise that it took the invading armies almost two months to break from the beachheads. Even when captured Cherbourg was so damaged that it would not become operational until much later. This was less of a worry than was expected since the Allies had become very adept at landing supplies at the open beaches.

Downloading Firestorm: Cherbourg & St. Lô (right click on each image below and select save as...)

The Rules	The Campaign Tokens	The Campaign Map (A3 size)

I want to thank Chris Townley and Sean Goodison at Battlefront for their support of these Firestorm projects. Also my very best thanks to Maurice V. Holmes Jr. who has offered me great assistance in proofreading and giving you a much better final version. So without further ado I give you Firestorm: Normandy Part II, Cherbourg & St. Lô with the hopes that you will enjoy your games and hopefully acquire a greater understanding of this part of our history and the sacrifices the soldiers made. ~ Jökull.