Developing Command Ops: "Lonsdale Force" Orders of Battle

I spent time last night trying to reconstruct which units were present/left  on the British side of the scenario I am developing that takes place between Sept 20 and 21st along the river road into Arnhem.

On the 19th, the British made a concerted effort to reach Colonel Frost and the 2nd Parachute battalion on the bridge along the "Lion route" into Arnhem with four battalions.  The battalions met heavy resistance and were chewed up by German forces.

Maj. Richard Lonsdale takes command of the remnants of that force on the morning of the 20th.  He organizes a defense with about 400 men east of the main British line in Oosterbeek and then falls back to the Oosterbeek perimeter after a German attack.  The Lonsdale force is a collection of these remnants as well as the remnants of the "Thompson force" which held the line behind Lonsdale. Thompson was wounded and command of this part of the battlefield passed over to Lonsdale.  My challenge, (if possible), is to figure out how to simulate units with fatigue, low ammo and with many at fractions of their original strength.  I don't know the editor well enough yet to know if this is possible. I also have to make some educated guesses about which companies were left from 4 battalions at that point in the battle.

The German Order of Battle is confusing as well.  Because the Germans fought in hastily constructed Kampfgruppes at Arnhem there is some disagreement in the sourcing I have found over which units were a part of each KG.

My notes for these units are below(from 2 sources):

Source 1:
SS Krafft (4 cos, some heavy weapons, 440 strong)(NW edge of Arnheim at midnight)  Sturmbannführer Sepp Krafft,  two marine regiments, a police company, and 10 x StuG IIIg of StuG Abteilung 280, S.S. Panzergrenadier Bataillon 16

SS Kampfgruppe "von Allwoerden" (120 men, 2 SP and towed  anti-tank guns)(south of Apeldoorn)

SS Kampfgruppe "Harder" (2 companies of tank crews &  3rd company of logistic troops working as infantry)  (Armheim with Krafft)
460 men


- 2 x Batterie/SS-Panzer Artillerie Regiment 9 (Hohenstaufen)

SS-Kampfgruppe Krafft (SS-Sturmbannführer Sepp Krafft)
- SS-Panzergrenadier-Ausbildungs und Ersatz-Bataillon 16
SS-Kampfgruppe Harder
- 2 x Kompanie/SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment 9 (Hohenstaufen)
- 1 x Kompanie/SS-Wirtschafts-Battalion 9 (Hohenstaufen)
SS-Kampfgruppe von Allwörden (SS-Hauptsturmführer Klaus von Allwörden)
- Mix of Waffen-SS pioneer, anti-tank and supply units and supplemented with Kriegsmarine troops
Kampfgruppe Bruhn (Hauptmann Hans Bruhn)

I am enjoying this so far and hope I will have the time to tackle the scenario maker manual this evening and begin to put some of this together.

For more on the Lonsdale Force scenario I am developing click here.

Comments

RangerX3X said…
Once you have imported a force list into the mission, you can begin to play around with individual unit settings such as: Cohesion, Fatigue, Morale, Experience, Fitness, Training, Aggro and Stubbornness. By vastly deflating these numbers from the stock force list settings, you can quickly achieve a shattered force. Adjustments to % of Estab can cull the troop/equipment numbers so that you end up with a fragile shell of the original unit.
Chris said…
Thanks Ranger. I took a quick look last night but need to devote some time to this. I don't know how long this will take but I am hopeful I might get something together by the end of the weekend. The forces involved are going to be small.

Also, I noticed on your website that you created a USMC mod. Did that take a ton of time? I was thinking about modding a 1940 Dutch force. I need to research where the fighting took place when the Germans invaded but it might be cool to simulate that at some point with the existing maps.

Thats putting the cart before the horse though. Let me see if I can survive the creation process for The Lonsdale Force.
RangerX3X said…
The USMC mod took months and I finally lost interest in it.

Creating a mod is a Pandora’s Box. It can be as simple as copying an Estab and an existing side/service and renaming it whatever you want. You can have the 33rd Regiment (Vietnam People's Army) in a matter of minutes, but with stock Axis or Allied WW2 weapons and equipment.

To get something different (such as period weapons, ballistics, armor, etc.) you will be embarking on a time-wasting journey that may be quite satisfying on a personal level but in the end not be worth the time expended.

Personally I have regressed to the point of just creating scenarios with stock maps and force lists, with a few tweaks here and there.
Chris said…
Thanks Ranger for the heads up. I don't have the time to dump into something like that so I will probably stick with the stock units and play around with their values based on what you mentioned earlier. I did see a small Dutch formation in the units list but I am assuming they are from 1944 and all have British/American gear. I would really love to edit/create maps, but after spending a night looking at it I realized cropping existing ones was the way to go.

Popular posts from this blog

John Tiller's Campaign Series - Buy It Now

Maxwell's Marauders: Find the Observation Post

Edson's Ridge